A great puzzle platformer a la Wario Land 3 and Donkey Kong '94! The regular enemies and boss battles are more annoying than complimentary, but ultimately the core challenge of figuring out any given room's solution with your surprisingly robust moveset more than makes up for it. There's plenty to get through, too, with 10+ large-ish levels that encourage replays via a ranking system, time-to-beat and hidden coins to find. Fantastic graphical presentation as well, like everything's so fluidly animated and colourful and expressive, more like a Neo Geo Pocket game than anything on GBC! Can't say the OST lives up to it, but it's still fitting enough.

Kinda shocked this one isn't talked about more often, even with a recent English patch! It's well worth looking into, especially if you want something to chip away at over time (helps that the game picks up at the exact room you turned the game off, nifty feature that).

A fun, exhilarating Luftrausers-like that could do with a bit of narrative trimming and a control scheme that didn't hurt my hands. Sometimes less is more when it comes to a story, especially in an action game, so having constant interruptions before, after and during missions winds up disrupting the pace more than accelerating it, especially with writing this flat and overconfident. Feels more like a TVTropes page come to life more than the 90's anime it wants to be...

But who's actually playing this for the narrative when you have dogfights this chaotic and boss fights this imposing? Adding a dodge function and a more traditional heath system to an already solid base makes for some truly tense and amazing missions to scrape by in, and coupled with risk/reward upgrade modules and a ranking system that actually explains itself logically, you've got one hell of a game to try and master! That is, if your hands don't give out after about 20 minutes of play...

Yeah, this is the other big problem, which isn't easy to explain and might just be me? But it genuinely impacts the replayability of the game in a negative way.
There's too many vital functions tied to the shoulder buttons (the biggest culprit being the left bumper, imo), which leads to a lot of uncomfortable moments where you're holding down too many buttons at once and it all starts cramping painfully.... It's a shame, too, because there's so much content to get through (NG+, Arcade Mode, just SSS-ranking all the missions without losing health, etc.) for those who love this sort of thing!

The New Game + seems genuinely interesting though, in a Nier/Ico sort of way, but I think I need a break to properly appreciate it. For now, though, I enjoyed what I played of it, and look forward to what the team puts out next! Might go grab the OST at some point too, because damn, that's some good Math Rock...

Not usually a fan of the sort of things this game pulls off (one hit deaths in a spike riddled obstacle course full of enemies that you have to avoid because you're also defenseless, that sort of thing), but it makes such good use out of it's level gimmicks that I didn't mind so much. The way the latter levels play with momentum and timing in particular was really fun to figure out! I probably would've liked it to have gone a bit more complex with it's ideas, but as is, it's still relatively engaging without being too obnoxious.

The writing's a bit naff though, like in that Modern Paper Mario, self aware & ironic way. Makes the titular dad seem like more of an asshole than the developers intended? It'd be a pretty cute little family story if it had landed, but alas, I kinda get why his kids kinda ran away from him...

A fun way to kill 2 hours, in the end. I wonder how the sequel's turned out...?

An enjoyable and cathartic top down action game dripping with atmosphere and adrenaline that's let down by being half baked in a number of small-yet-crucial ways. A lack of voice acting in cutscenes cripple what's already an otherwise threadbare narrative and setting. An inconsistent, busted scoring system ultimately sucks the fun out of learning (and experimenting with) the game's various mechanics. A general sense that the game was hastily scaled down from 'Cyberpunk Diablo' to 'Devolver Digital 4 hour romp' that leaves a hubworld barely visited and underutilized...

...But even then, I still found myself with plenty to love. I'm absolutely blown away at how gorgeous the visuals are, both in terms of fidelity and in art direction. This is punctuated pitch perfectly by one HELL of a soundtrack, with the highlight being 'Island Door (Paranesian Circle)' by Susumu Hirasawa of all musicians. And yeah, I'm ultimately a sucker for this type of 'Devolver Digital 4 hour romp', blood, gore, ethically questionable narrative and all.

It's yet another game, then, that I'll recommend when the sales start again. It's a damn shame, while also being a damn good time, too!

(...Dunno what all the Puppy Play shit's about tho, put a leather dog mask on the MC and get it over with lol)