SteamDeck then PC with mouse
6 hours (bad ending)

I want to tell everyone to play this game, but you are probably better off watching a video of someone else playing it.

Great setting, it's an atmospheric puzzle horror game with terrible controls. I started the game out on the SteamDeck and finished the first 2 chapters with it. On the 3rd chapter I had to switch to PC. I read other views that mouse is the best way to play this game. Mouse made it much easier to control but it still was frustrating at times.

For a game with bad controls, you need to have very good timing for certain puzzles. You'll die a lot in those parts. Some of the puzzles felt luck based, especially chapter 4's boss fight. Good thing for video recording and .25 playback speed. Even at .25 speed, it was hard.

Even with all those complaints the setting makes up for so much of it, which is why I said you're probably better off watching someone else play it. It's a great looking storybook game. I played The Liar Princess and the Blind Prince last year which I enjoyed a lot. I plan on checking out other games by Masayuki Furuya. I like his art style for games.

SteamDeck - 35 hours (True Ending)

3rd time is a charm. I started this twice (PS4 & Xbox) and liked the combat but dropped off due to the story. I recently got it for the Deck & finally finished it!

Probably the biggest surprise for me in this game is the story is actually good near the end of the bad ending & stays good for the true ending.

The stacking was a cool idea but later on gets annoying because putting in the wrong monster can make your stack prone to falling. I wanted to experiment more with monster combinations, but you felt punished for doing so.

Each monster has a skill board and I like those a lot but when you have that many monsters, you spend a lot of time unlocking a lot of pointless nodes.

I'm glad I finish beat it and got the true ending. I didn't do any of the extra dungeons that unlock after that because it was getting really grindy at the end and I read that is a ton of grinding for those dungeons.

P4G is a must play game for fans of turn-based RPGs. This year I decided to give Persona 4 another chance. I originally didn't care for P3 & P4 on the PS2, I was a big fan of Persona 1 & 2. I didn't like the social links but that changed with Persona 5. I know get it and like the system so I'm going back and playing the older ones. Persona games have great combat and stories and this one is no different.

I mainly played this on the SteamDeck and had no issues. I did play this on my desktop a few times and also had no issues with it.

I like LEGO games, but I missed a lot of the older ones. I already played LEGO The Hobbit which plays better LEGO LotR but this has the better story. I currently only beat the main game; I plan on going back and 100% it. Like most LEGO games, trying to get 100% will at least double the playtime since you have a lot of quests and have to replay all the stages. If you are new to LEGO games, I would recommend playing LEGO City Undercover, DC Super-Villains or Star Wars: The Force Awakens. After playing those and you want more LEGO games, then I would recommend playing this and The Hobbit.

I played this on the SteamDeck. I had use Proton-GE. The game froze on me once but not sure if that was due to Proton or being an older Lego game. Game crashed on me at a cutscene near the end, so I replayed that and played the last 2 stages on my PC with no issues.

An impressive native port on the Evercade

Cathedral is a great game with a few issues. I enjoyed the combat and boss fights. You'll probably die a few times with the early bosses, the later ones a little bit more. Exploring the areas and finding health upgrades and healing potions is a must.

For the first 3/4 of the game, I really enjoyed exploring the areas. I ran into a spot later in the game where I spent over an hour trying to figure out where to go next. I thought I figured it out but ended up doing a side quest that had an okay reward. After that I did figure out where to go next but I would into total I spent 2-3 going to the wrong areas and not getting a lot of out of it. Later in the game money is pointless except for a heath boast, so I would just try to skip fighting enemies when possible. You don't get any experience for killing enemies.

I read some complaints about the final area. I didn't think it was bad but maybe it was because I had 7 health potions. It was long but there were hp shrines to refill your potions. The final boss did require me to go get the last 2 health potions and do a health boast to beat it. Some bosses require you to switch between sub weapons. Those can be frustrating but at least you can disable the ones not needed for that fight.

Now with the port on Evercade. Like I said earlier, it is an impressive native port. It did crash on me once when going between screens fast. It also crashed on me when exiting the game. You have to exit the game for the Evercade EXP to track you play time. The system did get a little hot when playing this.

I look forward to seeing what Decemberborn Interactive makes next.

A fun NES homebrew with an annoying checkpoint system.

I liked AA a lot in the beginning. The NES looks, gameplay and combat are fun. The instadeath spikes with the bad checkpoint system nearly ruined the game. At least the Evercade has save states. The amount of time redoing areas you already did because of a instadeath spike was a lot. It almost felt like padding at times to make the game longer because it is a short game.

The puzzles in the game are good. I liked how magic worked in the game. You get the basic version first and then upgrade it later. I didn't collect all the orbs but I did enjoy looking for them. You move slow so getting around can take awhile, which is probably why I didn't feel like 100% it. With the slow movement and warp system, I felt getting around 80 of 99 orbs was enough.

Most bosses took a few tries to beat but nothing crazy. Once you figured out their pattern, they weren't bad. The is a story but it is forgettable. I couldn't remember the ending so I watched it on YouTube and there really wasn't one. There is a sequel "Alwa’s Legacy" and I plan on playing that someday. I kind of want to try out the original version too. It is just a hard game to recommend to those not into retro games.

I have been in a big retro big the past few years and one of the games I played a lot on the Intellivision was Shark! Shark!.

Feeding Frenzy is basically Shark! Shark! with stages. You are a fish that eats smaller fish, eventually you grow in size allowing you to eat bigger fish. Each stage has a feeding bar you have to fill to beat it. As you progress levels get jellyfish, golden fish, mines, poison fish, giant fast fish to add a little challenge.

The main game took me a little over an hour to beat. Beating that unlocks a time attack mode.

I enjoyed playing Feeding Frenzy and plan on checking out its sequel.

Arcade Beat'em up from the early days.

I'm not sure which Ninja Gaiden I played first, the NES or arcade game. They are very different games and I liked both.

Since it is an arcade game, you'll die a lot. It has a checkpoint system, so you might be doing the same part over and over. For a checkpoint system it's not as bad of some of those arcade shmups. Like most arcade games, it was designed to eat your quarters.

I first played Ninja Gaiden in the arcades and later on the Lynx. I recently picked up the Arcade Archives version of Ninja Gaiden on the Switch. I don't think I ever beat it until now. Arcade Archives has a few different play modes: Japanese, English, Hi Score Mode and Caravan Mode. I beat the English version. I also did a Hi Score Mode run. That and Caravan mode can be fun when looking for an additional challenge. You can change the button layout when not doing one of the challenge modes. I used that since I didn't care for the default button layout.

Since it is one of the early beat'em up games, hitting enemies can be a little tricky. I felt the difficulty was very good for most of the game, then it gets a little frustrating in the final stage. You'll die a lot but that is how those beat'em ups were designed. Surprisingly I didn't have much issues with boss fights. I think that was due to the checkpoint system, you couldn't have boss fights that were that unfair to the player. The last stage changed that, you now have to fight a few bosses from previous stages and the end boss that have one hit kills. With 2 lives you'll be continuing a lot and with the checkpoint system, you will just have figure it out a good strategy for those fights. One of those fights was very annoying, good thing for unlimited continues!! I actually had an easier time with the final boss since I got a sword drop during the fight.

I'm glad that I can finally say I beat the arcade version of Ninja Gaiden!! I'm sure I'll go back to this game someday. I like arcade games and Ninja Gaiden is a nostalgic beat'em up.

The third game in the series is another fun puzzle game with lots of new features but also feels a step backwards. I think this would be a great game for people new to puzzle games. There are a lot of options that you can enable to make it easier to figure out where pieces go.

GM3 has 3 different puzzle piece types: shards, honeycomb and chemistry. Shards are the closest how pieces looked in the previous game but they didn't feel as unique. Honeycomb and chemistry were nice additions but it shouldn't have come as the cost of making the shards less exciting.

GM3 also added different play modes. I did random to mix it up but I don't remember it choosing classic which gives you all the pieces. The three modes: Flood (new pieces unlock next to the piece that was played), Flood (outer to inner) and Flood (bottom to top). I did enjoy the new modes but it also made the game feel easier on hard, which makes you have to rotate the pieces.

GM3 has great art and music but again, I liked the puzzle art in GM2 more. The DLC in GM2 added some very cool looking puzzles and I hope GM3 does too.

If you like the series, GM3 is an easy pickup. It is only $5. I played it for a little over 8 hours. I liked it a lot but I just feel like the previous game is better.

I knew very little of A&O before this. I really liked the characters and want to learn more about them. I knew the game was going to be rough because of its age.

I didn't mind the combat but most of the time was spent smashing boxes then enemies. When you get to the last chapter, I think they remembered the remembered they created enemies to fight so lets drag it out by throwing tons of them at you.

The first boss fight was fun. Then you fight it again but in a different setting and again and again and .... Really? They couldn't come up with more bosses? Very disappointing.

I played this on the Steam Deck. It took me 10.5 hours to beat.

An excellent retro inspired game with a few issues. I was very surprised on how good the story is, and the gameplay is great except with some of the melee fights.

Your basic weapon is your shooting ink to freeze an enemy. Sometimes you use that enemy as a platform. A fun gameplay mechanic. Hats you unlock can change your attack; I liked that system a lot in the beginning but there are way too many hats. I got about half of 50 hats.

Once you take a hit you lose your hat (it basically lets you take an extra hit before dying). At checkpoints or between levels you can get a hat. When there isn't a lot, scrolling through isn't bad. After getting 10+, I was wishing there was a better way to select your hats.

Another nice feature is you can change the retro look of the game. At least 10 different color layouts. It was a nice touch; you can make it feel like a GB or GBC game. One part of the game had something going on that made it hard to see, even changing the look didn't help a lot. I almost stopped playing at that part. I'm glad I didn't.

The final few stages can drag and you die a lot. Good thing there is a spot you can farm lives =) I didn't like how much melee combat you had to do at the end but at that point you are hooked on the story.

Great game, highly recommended!

I played it on the Switch and it took me about 15.5 hours to beat.

I played this on the Steam Deck. It took me 42 hours to complete.

If you look at Various Daylife as a management sim, it isn't bad. I picked it in the Triangle Strategy bundle, so VD was about $5. Don't buy it at $30.

You do work that gets you overall exp, stat growth, might unlock new skills and money. Money can be used to invest in your party members (which levels them up). In the beginning money can be hard to get but after figuring out how rumors work, you can get work bonuses.

Most of your time will be spent trying to figure out what jobs to do or hanging out with your party members. Don't ever rest! Don't break your chain! That exp bonus is needed. I'm not doing the level 99 quest. I finished the game are level 64. Since money is easier to get than xp, I did have 3 party members at level 99, the other 6 were around 60.

Quests don't get you xp. You get some money, but you are better off doing work. When questing your party members are auto walking. When walking, your max hp goes down. Eating food bring it back up. It was annoying in the beginning because early on you can't carry much items and it only restores 10-20% max hp. Figuring out hp drain is more important the combat. Combat is neat with the combo system but not that challenging. You can easily invest in your party members to over level them. Besides the main store, doing quests also unlocks new areas in the city, jobs and items in the shops.

Each character has a total of 3 jobs, your character can learn them all. Once you do a quest to unlock a new job, eventually there will be a cutscene that lets you learn it. Doing work for that job unlocks the skills for your character. A neat idea but again, it is done through work screen, not combat.

I really did enjoy the game. The story gets good after the first credit roll. It starts out having you explore the lands and once you find them all, the credits roll. Then the real story starts. I liked the interacting between the characters. Just don't go in expecting a very complex turn based JRPG. Like I said before, most of the game is done in the work screen. Quest/fighting is about 1/4 of the game and near the end I was getting bored with it but wanted to see how the story ends.