I am surprised that this game didn't pop off similarly to other indie games released this year. It is so fast and frantic with an extremely high skill ceiling without being overbearingly hard. Combine that with an extremely harsh scoring system and this four hour game becomes an almost endlessly replayable game, not including the new game plus mode, which seems to be way harder than the normal campaign.

I will sing this game's praises all day, however one thing I absolutely hate about not only this game, but most fast-paced games, is slow-motion. Ghostunner, Katana Zero, Severed Steel. These games have a slow motion system, but are mostly optional with the exception of Ghostrunner, where there's a few essential spots and one enemy where you have to use slow motion. In Rollerdrome, slow motion (also referred to "reflex") is an essential mechanic. Not only does it make enemies significantly less tedious to deal with them (shield enemies), but the slug shotgun is locked behind the reflex mechanic. In addition, if you play on controller, reflex mode is the only way to aim while doing tricks.

Other than that one flaw, this game is excellent.

I came into Nioh expecting it to be a kind of decent dark souls game with not much worth noting, considering I've been recommended to skip this title and head towards the supposedly better sequel. Much to my surprise though, it turned out to be an excellent action game with a lot to differentiate itself from dark souls, so much so that I don't see the comparison when this game launched initially.

For being an action game, it has an incredible amount of depth in its gameplay. At first I imagined that the stance switching mechanic wasn't going to be all that impactful. All it did was switch your moveset, so why not just se the high stance so I can get the most damage output? After getting my shit stomped in the first area by common enemies, I learned that different stances have different dodges, which I couldn't see how impactful that was; I'd just stay in mid stance all the time since it seemed to have the most iframe-distance-endlag ratio. After dying to the first boss multiple times, I'd found myself switching my stances all the time to avoid certain attack patterns. That stayed true for the entirety off the bosses later in the game and even when they started introducing tougher enemies. I could talk about my discoveries using all the mechanics this game gives you, but the review would go on forever, so just know: This game does give you more depth that what you will ever need.

The level designs in this game are nothing to write home about. I don't dread going into a level, in fact its kind of easy to navigate, but they do nothing interesting in the levels that they all blend in together. They're not quite hallway-to-hallway linear though, so there is some exploration to be done. But to be honest, I'd probably prefer hallway levels over what the game have.

There's a lot of loot in this game, but my god is there not a good inventory system. You have to painstakingly sort your equipment while deciding which weapons you want to keep and discard while also comparing it to your own equipment and other similar equipment to keep track of the skills. That would be fine, I don't mind spending ten minutes of my time managing my inventory every so often. After finding 100-200 pieces of loot per level, it becomes a major flaw in this game, especially without an auto-discard option.

Finally, the last point I'd like to touch on: As you get towards the end of the game, its becomes a button masher rather than playing it carefully aggressive. It becomes a matter of "how good your equipment is" than "how good your skills are". In the last 1/3rd of the game, I've probably died twice to bosses. I'd go in there, use my guardian spirit and wipe out 1/2 or sometimes 2/3rds of their HP and usually beat them on my first try. Not saying I completely shut my brain off when fighting bosses, but they've become quite significantly easier.

Though in this review I've mainly talked about the negatives about this game, it goes to show how good the actual gameplay is. It hard carries the mediocre level designs, the lackluster music, and the frankly boring story.

This is my first point-and-click game in a long, long time (if ever) and its a pretty old game so I admit I might be judging it pretty harshly here, but it wasn't too great of an experience. The setting is pretty good, the story is pretty okay, most of the puzzles were not great. I felt as the objects I had to click on were not apparent, and the objectives you had to do were pretty mundane (wine glass puzzle, lightbulb in the subway, etc.). Voice acting was too inconsistent, ranging from "pretty good" to "awful and lifeless" between two lines of dialog.

I really, really tried to love this game, but there's a lot of quirks that nearly ruined the experience for me. Luckily it was a short game, which shouldn't be a praise.

One of these quirks was the pumpkin-head only challenges, which the first couple I didn't mind. I thought it was a cute addition, but as the game went on and on, having two per level made it really frustrating, especially with the grave-matching and the presents levels. Similar complaints apply for the on-rails sections. I thought the cart riding sections were not only a nice addition, but they were kind of fun as well. Similarly, there being two per level with very little to differentiate itself, made it tedious and it lost all its charm.

Aside from that, the overall gameplay was okay at best, but what really irked me was the developer calling this a 3D platform as the primary genre. While it's a fine adventure game, the platforming boring at the absolute best. I came into this game thinking it was a platformer, was disappointed, then proceeded to look at it as a kind of cutesy linear adventure game, which I was fine with, but then learning the developer considers it a 3D platformer first and foremost, I got immediately disappointed again.

It's not all bad though, far from it. This game has its own sense of style and flare that really makes it feel like from a different era, which was a nice and refreshing change. The boss battles in this game were surprising great, which I did not expect but was pretty impressed by. The strongest asset this game does extremely well is the music. Sure, it may not be entirely original work songs, but the Halloween-esc remixes of classical songs was done excellently and I imagine I'd be listening to the soundtrack later on my own.

It's a good game. The whole gameplay of stringing enemy kills together in a time limit to preform a stylish multi-kill while also powering up your blade for each kill is extremely satisfying, combined with enemies that actually block and fight back.
Although I like the platforming in this game, I can't help but to feel its unresponsive at times, or overresponsive, which leads me to bump into a waterfall and die in a pit and I have to restart the level again.
I was thinking about replaying this game from time to time and get better at it, but all of the bosses, especially that last boss, makes me reconsider my choices. Doesn't help that there's a boss on almost every stage.
Also, the game explains nothing to you, which you can mostly figure out on your own. However, to this day, I still do not know how to kick, or unleash a tornado of kunais.
Level design is awful too, camera even moreso.

Voice acting is a treat though, 10/10. (Emulated on PC)