Pizza Tower is a delightful 2D platformer that never stops being unhinged across many aspects, such as the fast-paced nature of the level design or the visuals that become increasingly insane as you progress further into the game. However, this does not distract from the fact that the game is tightly focused and does not have any unnecessary elements. Despite my lack of skill, I am still motivated to achieve the highest ranks for each level.

My only complaint about the game is that the bosses are a mixed bag. Some are amazing, but others are unremarkable and drag on for longer than I would prefer in a fast-paced 2D platformer, even if the visuals are still incredible.

Overall, I highly recommend this indie package if you enjoy fast-paced 2D platformers like Wario Land or 2D Sonic games.

The most mixed-bag Castlevania game that I have ever played, and there is a lot that I like and hate. I will start with the positives.

I like DLSS cards for the most part, especially once I started to experiment a lot in magician mode where I had to consider more with lower stats. The remixed soundtrack is delightful, especially for a launch title on the GBA. Once I start to get into the flow of movement after acquiring a decent amount of new abilities, I did start to enjoy moving around, especially with that sliding move that has helped me more times than I thought it would. Playing through Magician mode in general made the game a bit better for my experience, as it allowed me to use all DLSS cards at the start without that infamous glitch and made MP upgrades feel more worthwhile to find with much lower stats.

Unfortunately, I have to now get into negative stuff with this game, and the bosses are easily the worst because they are either lame or stupidly frustrating, which just makes the game feel like I'm hitting my head on the wall for ages. Grinding is also tedious, whether it is getting all DLSS cards or leveling up enough to reach the next section of the castle. I don't mind a bit of grinding, but this game goes way too far with it. The castle design is a mess. I will admit that on my magician mode playthrough, I started to have fewer problems with it, but I still can't say with a straight face that it is well-designed, and I still got lost plenty of times on my first playthrough. Lastly, the story and characters are non-existent and are pretty generic when there are sparks of that.

Overall, it is all over the place for me to recommend it to you.

Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance is a big step up from Circle of the Moon in most aspects, such as having the smoothest traversal movement in the franchise with the incredible dash. The spell fusion system is delightful to use or experiment with, and exploring the castle feels very rewarding.

It looks visually good for a GBA game, though a bit too bright. However, I can understand that decision due to the GBA SP not being available during the game's development. The bosses, while very easy, were fun to encounter and defeat.

This time, I found myself clicking with the characters and story, even if it is very predictable. Juste and Maxim are very cool characters that have great dynamics with each other, which made me not mind the plot being very predictable.

When the moment-to-moment Metroidvania gameplay clicks with me, it is such a joy to play, but I do have a few issues that still hold the game back from being truly amazing. My biggest problem is moving between Castle A & B is just not fun whatsoever due to moving back & forth between these which leads to confusion as to where I am and making the game just drag on. That aspect makes it feel like they tried too hard to be like Symphony of the Night without looking at the flaws of that game and making it even worse.

I also find getting the merchant to be gimmicky & tedious because it adds nothing to the game besides annoying me when I want to purchase stuff & then I can’t, wasting my time moving around the castle even further.
One presentation aspect that breaks my heart is the OST. Castlevania consistently has incredible OSTs that are music to my ears and some of the best in the gaming industry, so it upsets me that Harmony of Dissonance has such a bad OST that I never want to listen to it on my playlist and that is a bigger deal breaker for a series that consistently have provided amazing OSTs previously.

Overall, I enjoyed it a lot despite my issues and I can still recommend it. It does still enough good to be consistently fun, it just has little annoyances that become big problems and sometimes I just feel like it steps on Sympathy of the Night’s Shadows without standing out on its own.

Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow is such a refinement to the Metoidvania formula that has become my favorite Metroidvania entry in the series. The tactical soul ability system is a big help on that because it is such a genius mechanic that makes me wanna catalog the enemy roster and be very excited to kill each enemy to have a chance at getting new soul abilities. Its consistency gives me new souls to attack, move, or make me stronger, and most of the souls that I obtained are fun as hell to use. This is easily my favorite mechanic introduced in this franchise. My only gripe is that switching between souls can break the pacing during fights.

Another major component that makes this my favorite one is just the castle design. I’m so happy that IGA & his team has finally cut down on the fat by not including any alternate castles, but that isn’t the only reason why Aria of Sorrow Castle is amazing. The layouts are just well designed and not too confusing to navigate around, but still leave enough openness to make exploration feel consistently rewarding with the enemies or bosses giving you more cool souls & items. What helps all of this are the visuals that look amazing for a GBA game and having a soundtrack that Michiru Yamane has created with Takashi Yoshida & Soshiro Hokkai. The presentation overall is a such big step and impressive for a handheld device.

The final component that makes this game extra special for me is the overall narrative. Now, it is very predictable like previous games, but what makes this one more engaging is the consistent character interactions you get throughout the game and slowly witness these characters go through predictable plot points, but it is still very cool because I love the cast of characters this time. Soma, Genya, Julius, Yoko, etc are becoming my favorite cast members. Graham is a bit generic but works as a villain & Hammer is a pretty awesome dude that sells you items. The finale is also my favorite in the series so far without spoiling too much.

All of this makes the overall package so impactful for me to replay through constantly and funnily enough, my biggest gripe with this game is that your speed soul ability isn’t unlocked at new game plus. That is my only annoyance with this game, which otherwise is my 2nd favorite Castlevania game and one of my favorite Metroidvania games

My expectations with Cosmic Shake as a budgeted 3D platformer that doesn’t cost full price is that it would be decent at least and I’m happy to report that the game is wonderful. It has a few problems that makes it feel so low-budgeted, but I would say there is enough heart put into it for a budgeted title that I would recommend if you love to play another colorful 3D platformer.

Now my biggest surprise with this game was the writing. I still think the characterizations are a bit flanderized, but the writing itself made me smile so much on how the character dynamics bounce so well off each other with their dialogues and not having to rely on visual gags as the main substance that is comedy, which unfortunately current SpongeBob suffers from way too much. I haven’t enjoyed this much writing from SpongeBob since like half of season 4 or Sponge Out of Water. They also make a lot of callbacks from early seasons and thankfully most of them don’t feel so forced in except for 2 of them from my experience.

Top all of this with surprisingly well-animated cutscenes are that very expressive, having all the voice actors that still sound great voicing their iconic or even side characters, and having a new brand character for this called Kassandra whiles is a very predictable type of character still a great addition to the cast of characters. This is easily my favorite written SpongeBob adventure in a video game form.


Now as for the gameplay itself, you only play as SpongeBob this time compared to BFBB where you can also play as Sandy or Patrick. That might sound like a downgrade, but they made this up by combining other playable character move sets into SpongeBob for this game and that was honestly such a wise decision because this leads to SpongeBob being way more fun to control compared to the previous games where he was pretty basic due to having to balance previous games around other playable characters to have different move sets each. Now that they can only focus solely on SpongeBob, it's much more satisfying to unlock new moves like the dodge roll, pizza glide, or karate kick that I consistently use for platforming or combat that are engaging. it leads to the level design being very focused and shaking things up enough to feel new, but not ruining the overall flow that is pure platforming, which I do think Movie Game failed at it, and even BFBB to an extent with a few obnoxious objectives.

The game is very linear compared to BFBB and depending on what you expect from this game, I do understand being let down by the lack of openness that is the collectathon structure in BFBB that was well known. However, I can easily swallow that because I do think the level design despite being very linear is still very engaging to go through at least when it comes to the main paths, and isn’t so much of a straight line that it fights against you. There are still enough of these open sections for you to complete main objectives from different points, it has that doughnut shape structure within these level sections where the game lets you complete stuff that eventually leads you back to the main path naturally or find a doubloon that lets you spend on cool unlockable costumes that are callbacks to the past. The structure & level design is consistently well-designed & focused I find to be more fun than BFBB when it comes to the main paths at least. There is also not a single level that I disliked, unlike BFBB where Kelp Forest was just a mess.

The last few things I have to praise before I get into my complaints is that the game looks gorgeous. Environments or characters look so stylized or colorful, each level looks so distinctive. The soundtrack is also very cool, not blowing my socks off, but it was very catchy to listen to during the game.

Now, my biggest complaint with this game is the finale. Not to spoil what exactly happens, but it feels very anticlimactic & the final boss gameplay-wise is a complete joke. Left me soured a bit at the finish lines.

My last major complaint is that whiles going through the main paths is very fun, I do think optional quests that require you to backtrack makes 100% of the game just not very fun, especially since the last 20 doubloons that you use to unlock costumes are useless. So these optional quests feel like padding the game out, it is not the end of the world for me because just finding doubloons is enough to unlock all the costumes but keep this in mind if you are considering 100% this.


In conclusion, I’m very happy with this overall package that was made by people who loved the source material, but they also knew how to design a very fun 3D platformer despite its low budget showing its cracks sometimes. For a game that goes for a lower price, I can recommend this to anyone who is a fan of SpongeBob or are into 3D platformers in general

Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart gameplay-wise is one of the strongest entries in the series due to having nearly an entire new roster of weapons that are both refreshing & fun as hell to use. Plus, the pacing having no fluff with the lack of obnoxious gimmicks or puzzle sections like Clank puzzles letting you skip them makes it one of the most replayable entries in the series. The only thing that disappoints me is the lack of enemy variety which tends to make encounters feel repetitive toward the end.

Now, I only talked about the gameplay, and thats because the story unfortunately didn’t sit with me. I found the tone having no idea what it wants to do with certain moments that takes away from me caring about the characters emotionally and that overall makes most of them feel so one note to me. I’m also just getting sick of the whole Lombax stuff with Ratchet because we are going through a cycle with this character after A Crack in Time and it makes him so boring to me. The best part of the story is just the incredible cutscene animations that are so expressive & have a lot going on, definitely a big glow-up from the 2016 game that had stilted cutscenes.

The soundtrack is unfortunately generic to me & barely any tracks that I see myself listening to outside of the game. Besides that, top-notch presentation with overall graphics & animation work that are very impressive.


Overall. it is still a fun game from Insomniac Games that I recommend to people, but I think it has enough issues that it still makes it far from my Ratchet & Clank game if we are talking about the entire package.

Gravity Circuit is certainly one of my biggest surprises of 2023 so far with such smooth controls & flow that playing it never gets tiring, which helps by the solid level design that isn’t a breeze to go through, but you feel like a badass when you get through it with barely any scratches helped by the satisfying melee combat.

Double that with the chips & techniques that you can purchase when rescuing bots around each level that makes exploration feel very rewarding since most of them are pretty useful to get for levels or bosses. My only nitpick is that the lack of loadout slots makes switching to different chips & techniques take a bit too long and ruins the otherwise perfect fast-paced flow that the game exceeds.

Speaking of bosses, most of them are very engaging & surprisingly well balanced that even fully upgrading Kai won’t make all the boss fights a complete joke, especially at the finale, which outside of the obnoxious boss rush is a pretty satisfying finale both gameplay & where the story started to somewhat be interesting.

The overall story is the weakest aspect of the game. Until the finale rolls, I just found the plot to be pretty standard which I would’ve been fine with if the characters had cool or entertaining interactions, but it unfortunately lacks that. Kernel & one other character that I can’t spoil are only two that had a few memorable moments, but everyone else is unfortunately a blur to me. It's not the end of the world because outside of Mega Man Zero games, this kind of game tends to not focus on the stories. So if you don’t care about it, you won’t be affected by this too much unlike me.

The last few things I wanna highlight are the visuals & soundtrack. The pixel art in this is stunning due to the use of different color palettes that makes each level look distinctive, slick portraits that give it so much personality, and the overall UI is beautifully stylized. The soundtrack overall is full of energy I never got tired of listening to it.

Overall, this package is superb and one of the best modern action platformers that I have played in recent memory. I come back to replaying it, especially since it offers New game plus & Circuit mode that I want to give a try. For a game that costs under $20, this is a steal that I would recommend to anyone who is in the mood for an engaging action-platformer.

I have a soft spot for open worlds that focus on traversal movement that you will use to move from A to B even if the activities that you are doing are pretty standard. I enjoyed a lot of them such as Marvel’s Spider-Man, Sunset Overdrive, Solar Ash, and even Sonic Frontiers.

Looking at Forspoken, the movement looks fluent, but playing it is a completely different story. Regular movement is so slow, it feels like I’m on gravity 24/7 especially when the game wants you to jump over anything that isn’t barren empty fields and it’s so sluggish. It has the complete opposite problem of Sonic Frontiers where that game’s animations are stiff as hell, but moving around feels way smoother than I anticipated it and you go fast unlike Forspoken that does have smooth animations, but controlling the character doesn’t feel good or fun at all.

Unfortunately, the magic parkour doesn’t fix this. It creates even more problems because trying to grapple on certain highlighted rocks that launch you higher makes the camera freak out by keep going down automatically whenever I use that focus aim and it annoyed me so much that I avoided using them because the game’s camera is terrible due to having a hard time aiming to keep my flow going to do any basic parkour. This was done better in Solar Ash with slow-motion & free camera in first person that was more responsive when using that focus aim.

I know that I’m harping on the movement so much, but for a game that is focusing on that aspect consistently to move around the open world from my experience. If the core fundamental movement isn’t fun at all to control, the game completely feels apart for me because it then really highlights other aspects like the open world or combat are just painfully generic or tedious to do.

I would be singing the same tune about Marvel’s Spider-Man if the web swinging wasn’t fun to use at all, but it is, and that made the game very fun for me to do activities even if they are pretty standard because that gives me more excuses to web swing around the open world & it never gets old for me. Same with Sonic in Sonic Frontiers, boosting through the open zones to collect stuff, beating up enemies, or going to the piss easy puzzles is just very fun even if they are nothing special at all. Going from my marked waypoint to another one in both of these games is so smooth & fun that I barely used the fast travel system in either game, which tells me that they did something right. I don’t feel that with Forspoken whatsoever during my experience, I wanted to use fast travel at every opportunity that I could.

Overall, after several hours. I just gave up on this game and not having the energy to keep going due to how boring the overall package is and having character movement that doesn’t feel good or fun to use across the board. Just play these other games that I compared to this slog, especially Solar Ash.

I could genuinely go into details on why this new PVE invasion is aggressively boring, but considering it is less than 2 hours long. Why should I bother wasting my time on making a long review on something that is so proud of being this mediocre when I could recommend you countless other games like Deep Rock Galactic or Remnant 2 that are actual fulfilling PVE experiences, which are worth your time with buddies instead of Invasion, which costs 15 dollars alone already feels like a robbery. Please use that money to support an indie dev instead of this snooze fest

TMNT: Shredder’s Revenge has made me have second thoughts on Beaten Em Up genre, maybe willing to give it more chances because this game is so much fun to playthrough from start to finish due to its very simple but effective combat that is satisfying to pull off and looks visually stunning because of their amazing pixel art that is so vibrant & gives each character so much personality. The presentation across the board is amazing and the soundtrack by Tee Lopes is just the icing on the cake

This game isn’t very long, but with having multiple playable characters or optional challenges & requests to complete in each stage, plus the multiplayer that is both couch or online for up to 6 players and old-school arcade mode for diehard fans of that genre. The overall package has strong replayability and I’m honestly in the mood to replay it as a different character or have fun in the hectic multiplayer. This is a strong recommendation if you are into Beat Em Ups or if you are a TMNT fan.

As someone who has never played a From Software game before, something about this newest Armored Core entry intrigued me way more compared to their previous games despite these being critically acclaimed especially Elden Ring. I just think a badass mech game with deep customization and not being very lengthy made it more interesting to me.

I was expecting to play a great game knowing From Software’s reputation, but I didn’t expect to walk away from this being my GOTY and one of the strongest games that I have played in recent memory. The main 3 things that make the game work so well together are mission design, mech customization, and boss encounters/difficulty.

I want to start with mission design. It's pretty impressive how consistently they shake things up without completely changing the simple gameplay loop of destroying anything that is in your way or finding stuff whether it the varied environments, having AI partners with you sometimes, level design utilizing its vertically a lot, or set pieces that makes these missions so memorable to go through and witness. The cherry on top is the pacing just being near perfect with each mission knowing when to end.

The second key ingredient is mech customization, as you complete missions or progress through each chapter. You consistently unlock new parts for your 4 weapon slots (2 on the back and the other 2 on the front), heads, cores, arms, legs, etc. I’m gonna honest, even after beating the game. The amount of different parts that I can create for my ideal mech builds overwhelmed me as a novice to AC, but I will give it credit for making each part useful & distinctive to where it is constantly rewarding getting new parts, and it is very generous of the game to let me sell any parts that I won’t use for a while for the same value as when I purchased it.

That seriously makes experimenting with different builds or parts so much more encouraging because you don’t lose much. It's like seasoning your chicken with infinite use of different herbs & spices that don’t run out and you can just sell it back for a specific type of herb or spice you want to put on your chicken to season it (I’m so sorry if that comparison made you feel hungry)


The final ingredient that makes previously 2 key elements that I have gushed about already just coming together to complete this package is boss encounters. It’s no secret that From Software games are fucking hard from what I know, with that being said. Most of the regular missions in AC6 are pretty easy, but that's because the boss encounters are where this game pushes you hard and some are going to call this a weird difficulty curve. I think it's brilliantly designed because this game handles you with so many tools constantly from completing missions that putting together ideal builds against the bosses that suit you feels so satisfying to pull through with this combat puzzle element that isn’t even the only solution. I have seen a decent amount of different builds from other people winning against the same boss fights. It shows that boss encounters don’t feel like you are smacking your head into the wall without knowing if it was worth your time or not.

All of these 3 key elements make the general gameplay loop of AC6 so engaging from start to finish. This all elevates further with a stellar presentation that is both very moody & unique to tell its tone with the art direction. A very strong plot & lore that made me attached to the journey despite barely seeing the characters themselves & making the setting of Rubicon 3 way more interesting than I anticipated. I also want to give a serious shoutout to the amazing audio with the sound design & music being music to my ears to make the overall package standout.

If there is anything that I have to complain about this game genuinely is that dying takes way too long to get over with and I wish the menu to restart was loaded way quicker to not break the pacing too much when I die constantly from boss fights. Besides that, I hardly have anything else to complain about with this game.

It's no secret by now that I find this game to be an incredible experience that I want to sink my teeth into further and luckily with a new game plus that even unlocks more stuff without spoiling anything. This game even has strong replayability with the cherry on top and how much I find the gameplay loop to be addictive, I will 1000% be replaying it right away. This is my GOTY and I would be shocked if any other game this year tops it.

Bomb Rush Cyberfunk is a love letter to the Dreamcast that somehow transcends into its own thing. I can tell because I’m not very nostalgic for the Sega Dreamcast or never played Jet Set Radio myself, it just looked like a cool stylized game that completely delivers on the stellar art direction that oozes everywhere with a soundtrack that makes my body move.

The story surprised me a lot even if the characters are one note, but that isn’t an issue when each of them is so charming and the plot itself was interesting enough to hook me.

The traversal movement though in this game, I haven’t enjoyed moving around this much since like Spider-Man 2 video game. Boost meter being so well balanced with having to do tricks to fill it up will open up opportunities to either use your pack boost or use regular boost while doing a manual, but at the cost of that meter depleting slowly.

The cherry on top is the few hidden techniques like holding the manual button that reduces your jump height or while you are grinding on rails that you can do hard corners depending on the direction that will give you an extra boost automatically and fill up your boost meter way faster.

This is all to say that the traversal movement in this game requires effort to pull off satisfying flow instead of holding down a single button to get the same result and they balanced every mechanic around it. It feels so earned to have such a seamless flow that I haven’t felt for a game that focuses on traversal movement even with the good ones. Spider-Man 2 video game is the last I could think of that, but even that game had its jank that Bomb Rush thankfully doesn’t have.

My only notable complaint with this game is the combat. It's just kind of there, I appreciate the enemy variety, and when I started to understand the mechanics. It didn’t completely halt the otherwise amazing flow this game has, but it is just really weak compared to most other elements of this game.


Overall, I was expecting to have a decent time with this game, but I wasn’t anticipating this game to be one of my favorite modern games in recent memory and it is certainly becoming my 2nd favorite game of 2023 right behind Armored Core 6. I can’t recommend this game enough.

Payday 3 at launch is like walking into a burger restaurant and instead of asking for the usual burger that they have improved & refined for years known as Payday 2, I wanna try the new burger that they just put on their menu recently which is Payday 3.

The chefs are getting it ready for me and after taking my first bite out of it. I’m stunned at how good it is & find it very delicious even if I’m sure that some sauces are missing known as smaller, but appropriate features from Payday 2.

Still, it doesn’t distract me enough from the fact that the new burger left me wanting to eat more of it. However, the waiter known as the server just grabs the new burger from my hands and throws it away, leaving me completely shocked and getting a bit mad. Now imagine this scenario but happening constantly and that is Payday 3 in a nutshell for me.

A very good game that the chefs known as the game devs should be proud of it, but they seriously need to fucking sort out their waiters known as the servers, and let me fully finish their damn new burger that I enjoy when the waiter isn’t being an asshole

Before the Final Horizon update comes out, I think now is a good time to talk about this game after I decided to replay it from scratch recently without any of the new game plus stuff this week.

With that being said, this game is the most fun I ever had with a janky game in recent memory. I can complain about how blatantly unpolished it is, the unacceptable pop-in, and the original finale being one of the most underwhelming climaxes in the entire series (please age poorly with the final update), etc.

I can easily see why people don’t vibe with this game at all. However, I can’t for the life of me because blazing through the open zone to collect or complete stuff at a consistent speed is such an addictive gameplay loop that I didn’t expect to enjoy so much, listening to an amazing soundtrack that tells it to own little story or tone, enjoying most of character interactions, and titan fights for as spectacle heavy as they are being franchise highlights.

This game despite how duct-taped together it feels reminded me why I love the Sonic franchise despite the bumpy roads it had to go through for god knows how long at this point I’m just not in the mood to spell it out. Regardless, Sonic Frontiers did enough for me personally to enjoy the overall package and it makes me optimistic for the future of the series.