Tyraynor
One of the best JRPGs of the modern era. An almost perfect mix of modern and ‘retro’ elements, even gives you the choice between 2d and 3d graphics.
Every character has a unique personality and playstyle, and most have a variety of customization options to match.
Most character and monster designs are charming, and have a nostalgic feel to them. Though I’m probably just biased towards Akira Toriyama’s older art style.
The story is more simple and logical than most JRPGs. The only real problem I have is that the ‘post-game’ story is just you replaying a different version of the third act, and going through the plot twists while the game acts like you’ve never seen these twists before.
The post game bosses can be insanely difficult, depending on your playstyle and difficulty settings, but it feels really good when you finally beat them.
One of the most satisfying JRPGs I’ve Platinumed. Recommended for JRPG lovers.
Every character has a unique personality and playstyle, and most have a variety of customization options to match.
Most character and monster designs are charming, and have a nostalgic feel to them. Though I’m probably just biased towards Akira Toriyama’s older art style.
The story is more simple and logical than most JRPGs. The only real problem I have is that the ‘post-game’ story is just you replaying a different version of the third act, and going through the plot twists while the game acts like you’ve never seen these twists before.
The post game bosses can be insanely difficult, depending on your playstyle and difficulty settings, but it feels really good when you finally beat them.
One of the most satisfying JRPGs I’ve Platinumed. Recommended for JRPG lovers.
2019
I’ve been a Persona fan since almost the beginning, and while I wouldn’t say any of them are bad, the games get better with every new main game, and Persona 5/5R is no exception.
The story is mostly well written, but I never want to hear the words/phrases “cognition”, “cognitive psience”, “social reform”, “rehabilitation”, or “shitty adults” ever again.
The party members are all unique and likeable, and are well balanced in combat, with most of them having different possible playstyles. The only problems is that two of them constantly argue, which starts a major subplot that has no resolution, and two others only exist to serve as an excuse to do their related dungeons. There’s also wasted potential conflict between three of the party members that is never brought up again.
While P5/P5R aren’t exactly hard games, they do get easier with once you a handle of all of combat mechanics. I personally only had somewhat of a hard time with 2 or 3 of the bosses, but that was only because they designed to take forever to beat.
The game also suffers from ending fatigue real badly. After beating the final boss, there’s still about 3 hours of epilogue to play through.
All that being said though, Persona 5/5R is a fantastic game with tons to do that deserves all the love and praise it receives.
The story is mostly well written, but I never want to hear the words/phrases “cognition”, “cognitive psience”, “social reform”, “rehabilitation”, or “shitty adults” ever again.
The party members are all unique and likeable, and are well balanced in combat, with most of them having different possible playstyles. The only problems is that two of them constantly argue, which starts a major subplot that has no resolution, and two others only exist to serve as an excuse to do their related dungeons. There’s also wasted potential conflict between three of the party members that is never brought up again.
While P5/P5R aren’t exactly hard games, they do get easier with once you a handle of all of combat mechanics. I personally only had somewhat of a hard time with 2 or 3 of the bosses, but that was only because they designed to take forever to beat.
The game also suffers from ending fatigue real badly. After beating the final boss, there’s still about 3 hours of epilogue to play through.
All that being said though, Persona 5/5R is a fantastic game with tons to do that deserves all the love and praise it receives.
2020
Bugsnax a very cute and… unique monster catching game. Instead of using these creatures for battle, you feed them to islanders.
The islanders are a group of dog/frog people called “Grumps”. They all have unique personalities and most of them (not Cromdo) are very likable. You help them with their problems and catch Bugsnax for them, and sometimes feed them those Bugsnax, which will change a part of their body.
The story is character driven, with the cast getting lots of development, but the main plot left me with more questions than answers. But in a good way.
The Bunsnax themselves are all adorable, with clever designs, and I will kill and die for Bunger. There are, in my opinion, a few too many reskins/recolors of some Bugsnax.
My only complaint is that there really isn’t a ‘final boss’ at the end, but it’s not that big of deal.
All in all, Bugsnax is a very chill and cute game, and I hope it gets a sequel soon!
The islanders are a group of dog/frog people called “Grumps”. They all have unique personalities and most of them (not Cromdo) are very likable. You help them with their problems and catch Bugsnax for them, and sometimes feed them those Bugsnax, which will change a part of their body.
The story is character driven, with the cast getting lots of development, but the main plot left me with more questions than answers. But in a good way.
The Bunsnax themselves are all adorable, with clever designs, and I will kill and die for Bunger. There are, in my opinion, a few too many reskins/recolors of some Bugsnax.
My only complaint is that there really isn’t a ‘final boss’ at the end, but it’s not that big of deal.
All in all, Bugsnax is a very chill and cute game, and I hope it gets a sequel soon!
2018
A game that starts with an interesting premise, but ultimately fails to live up to its potential.
There is an interesting mechanic where you switch between a VN style ‘real world’ and the in universe video game. The idea is that things that happen in one universe would change something in the other one, but all of these events are required for gameplay progression, taking the fun out of the idea.
Another mechanic that’s neat in theory is that enemies can bounce off of walls and each other, depending on far your attacks launch them, making take more damage. But a majority of the time the enemy is dead before the damage bonus comes into play.
There’s another mechanic that claims to change the game to a different genre, but they are all just unfun mini games.
The ‘real world’ characters are fine, and talk about interesting things pertaining to the plot. The ‘video game’ characters on the other hand, are mostly annoying waifu bait anime girls that drone on and on about things that usually don’t pertain to the overall plot.
As for the plot itself, it starts out simple enough, with an interesting premise too, but it kinda falls flat at the end. The ‘game world’ constantly brings up supernatural real world phenomena, but is actually completely unrelated to anything, other than getting the ‘real world’ protagonist to investigate certain areas.
Sometimes plot events just happen with little to no build up. There’s a random fourth wall break near the end that tries to make some kind of meta narrative (think Bravely Default but with awful writing), but it’s pretty meaningless.
Just don’t bother with this game.
There is an interesting mechanic where you switch between a VN style ‘real world’ and the in universe video game. The idea is that things that happen in one universe would change something in the other one, but all of these events are required for gameplay progression, taking the fun out of the idea.
Another mechanic that’s neat in theory is that enemies can bounce off of walls and each other, depending on far your attacks launch them, making take more damage. But a majority of the time the enemy is dead before the damage bonus comes into play.
There’s another mechanic that claims to change the game to a different genre, but they are all just unfun mini games.
The ‘real world’ characters are fine, and talk about interesting things pertaining to the plot. The ‘video game’ characters on the other hand, are mostly annoying waifu bait anime girls that drone on and on about things that usually don’t pertain to the overall plot.
As for the plot itself, it starts out simple enough, with an interesting premise too, but it kinda falls flat at the end. The ‘game world’ constantly brings up supernatural real world phenomena, but is actually completely unrelated to anything, other than getting the ‘real world’ protagonist to investigate certain areas.
Sometimes plot events just happen with little to no build up. There’s a random fourth wall break near the end that tries to make some kind of meta narrative (think Bravely Default but with awful writing), but it’s pretty meaningless.
Just don’t bother with this game.
2018
An incredibly fun game. Spider-Man games rarely disappoint, and this one is no exception.
The combat is basically a Spider-Man flavor of the Batman: Arkham series’ combat, which isn’t a bad thing in this case.
Web-slinging throughout the city is extremely fun, you kinda don’t want to stop to do other objectives sometimes.
The story is engaging and feels real, something that I feel has always been of the strongest points of the majority of the Spider-Man series.
My only problems, are that story is a little short, and the Sinister Six has little to no involvement, being defeated shortly after being introduced.
Overall, a great game for Spider-Man fans, or for someone wanting to get into Spider-Man.
The combat is basically a Spider-Man flavor of the Batman: Arkham series’ combat, which isn’t a bad thing in this case.
Web-slinging throughout the city is extremely fun, you kinda don’t want to stop to do other objectives sometimes.
The story is engaging and feels real, something that I feel has always been of the strongest points of the majority of the Spider-Man series.
My only problems, are that story is a little short, and the Sinister Six has little to no involvement, being defeated shortly after being introduced.
Overall, a great game for Spider-Man fans, or for someone wanting to get into Spider-Man.
2019
I’ve never played a Sakura Wars game before, so I didn’t know what to expect besides mech fighting.
Turns out, despite being a mech game, the mechs aren’t really a focus? It’s more of a Slice of Life/Harem Visual Novel with simple hack-and-slash mech combat thrown in.
That’s not to say it’s completely bad, it’s just different than what it was advertised as.
The story starts pretty decent, but around the midpoint it kinda forgets it has a main plot for a little bit and just focuses on character driven plot lines. This wouldn’t be a problem in a longer game, but Sakura Wars is about 15-20 hours long, and this part just makes the main plot lose momentum.
Characters are for the most part well written, but after a certain point almost every interaction with your party members is ‘comedic misunderstanding’, where the protag is accused of being a horny pervert over the most random things.
Combat is super simple and doesn’t evolve or change in any way, except for one party member getting an upgrade. All the characters play differently though, but you can’t choose your party for most of the few combat sections this game has. Combat is also paired with awkward platforming.
If you need a quick mech fix, I’d recommend playing this for at least one playthrough.
Turns out, despite being a mech game, the mechs aren’t really a focus? It’s more of a Slice of Life/Harem Visual Novel with simple hack-and-slash mech combat thrown in.
That’s not to say it’s completely bad, it’s just different than what it was advertised as.
The story starts pretty decent, but around the midpoint it kinda forgets it has a main plot for a little bit and just focuses on character driven plot lines. This wouldn’t be a problem in a longer game, but Sakura Wars is about 15-20 hours long, and this part just makes the main plot lose momentum.
Characters are for the most part well written, but after a certain point almost every interaction with your party members is ‘comedic misunderstanding’, where the protag is accused of being a horny pervert over the most random things.
Combat is super simple and doesn’t evolve or change in any way, except for one party member getting an upgrade. All the characters play differently though, but you can’t choose your party for most of the few combat sections this game has. Combat is also paired with awkward platforming.
If you need a quick mech fix, I’d recommend playing this for at least one playthrough.
2019
Gnosia is a werewolf type game where you play against AI instead of players. Fun in theory, but werewolf is a social game.
The gameplay is fine enough as is, but gets repetitive really quick. It doesn’t help that the ‘discussions’ are just characters throwing random, typically generic and personalityless comments at each other.
Whoever dies or get voted out feels pretty random sometimes, no matter how the discussion went.
There are some interesting bits that you can learn about the AI characters, but you have to go out of your way to create specific scenarios for most of them, which can be hard sometimes.
I personally love most of the character designs, and the music is pretty good too.
I recommend playing in short bursts so you don’t burn yourself out on it.
The gameplay is fine enough as is, but gets repetitive really quick. It doesn’t help that the ‘discussions’ are just characters throwing random, typically generic and personalityless comments at each other.
Whoever dies or get voted out feels pretty random sometimes, no matter how the discussion went.
There are some interesting bits that you can learn about the AI characters, but you have to go out of your way to create specific scenarios for most of them, which can be hard sometimes.
I personally love most of the character designs, and the music is pretty good too.
I recommend playing in short bursts so you don’t burn yourself out on it.
2021
Biomutant is a game that tries to be a lot of different things, but also doesn’t try hard enough to commit to be any of them.
It’s an open world 3rd person shooter action adventure puzzle platforming rpg.
The open world is fine enough, with beautiful and mostly interesting environments, although some area can look very samey (all sewers look almost exactly the same, for example).
Biomutant claims to focus on ‘kung-fu’ combat, but is so inefficient that you’re better off using anything else. Finding or making a halfway decent gun will get you get through the game just fine.
The ‘puzzles’ aren’t even worth being called puzzles. For the most part you just rotate knobs until the yellow and white parts face in the direction of the matching color. You also have to be lucky to get a puzzle that can be solved within 10 moves. The game also tells you that increasing your intellect stat will increase the number of moves for these puzzles, but I saw no such thing happen in my playthrough.
The platforming elements are slippery, for lack of a better word. Constantly getting stuck in a rock or something, accidentally activating glide which just makes you fall down almost instantly, etc.
The story, what little of it there is, is basic. Which would be fine, but every single line of dialogue is a rough translation of they are saying. Which leads to you hearing the narrator say the same 5 or so lines over and over.
Biomutant is not as bad as people say it is. The game is kind of a fun ‘turn your brain off and shoot things’ type of game.
It’s an open world 3rd person shooter action adventure puzzle platforming rpg.
The open world is fine enough, with beautiful and mostly interesting environments, although some area can look very samey (all sewers look almost exactly the same, for example).
Biomutant claims to focus on ‘kung-fu’ combat, but is so inefficient that you’re better off using anything else. Finding or making a halfway decent gun will get you get through the game just fine.
The ‘puzzles’ aren’t even worth being called puzzles. For the most part you just rotate knobs until the yellow and white parts face in the direction of the matching color. You also have to be lucky to get a puzzle that can be solved within 10 moves. The game also tells you that increasing your intellect stat will increase the number of moves for these puzzles, but I saw no such thing happen in my playthrough.
The platforming elements are slippery, for lack of a better word. Constantly getting stuck in a rock or something, accidentally activating glide which just makes you fall down almost instantly, etc.
The story, what little of it there is, is basic. Which would be fine, but every single line of dialogue is a rough translation of they are saying. Which leads to you hearing the narrator say the same 5 or so lines over and over.
Biomutant is not as bad as people say it is. The game is kind of a fun ‘turn your brain off and shoot things’ type of game.
2017
Forma.8 is a beautiful and somewhat relaxing puzzle exploring game, but that all it has going for it sadly.
This game has no desire to tell you what’s going on in the story or what you’re supposed to be doing at any given moment. It doesn’t help that you’re barely even told the controls and you move at a snail’s pace.
This game has no desire to tell you what’s going on in the story or what you’re supposed to be doing at any given moment. It doesn’t help that you’re barely even told the controls and you move at a snail’s pace.
Studio Ghibli + Pokemon, a seemingly great idea come to life. The world is beautiful, the creature designs are fantastic, and the story hooks you in at the very beginning.
However, that’s were all the good things end. It takes a while to even get your first creature, and even longer to unlock the ability to capture more of them.
Combat, while it has an interesting mechanic of being able to switch between the human characters and their monster friends, can be pretty slow at times. In order to capture more monsters, you need to control a certain party member, a character you won’t get until after the second or third dungeon, and have them use a certain skill on the monster. But you have to defeat the monster first, hope that it has hearts over its head instead of just leaving, and switch to the specific party member and use their skill within a short amount of time. That’s assuming you can even get the monster you want to even spawn, as some monsters have extremely low appearance rates.
The world is really big, which is good, but you don’t unlock any form of fast travel until pretty far in the game, and even you still have to do a LOT of walking. You can unlock the ability to move faster on the map… after you 100% the game.
The story is still excellent, up until about the last third or fourth part of the game. In the original version, you finally get to the antagonist, defeat them, and then the game just ends right there. In this version, after you beat the main antagonist, another boss randomly shows up, you defeat them, and then the game just ends after that.
It’s a shame that such an amazing idea and story ended up being wasted potential.
However, that’s were all the good things end. It takes a while to even get your first creature, and even longer to unlock the ability to capture more of them.
Combat, while it has an interesting mechanic of being able to switch between the human characters and their monster friends, can be pretty slow at times. In order to capture more monsters, you need to control a certain party member, a character you won’t get until after the second or third dungeon, and have them use a certain skill on the monster. But you have to defeat the monster first, hope that it has hearts over its head instead of just leaving, and switch to the specific party member and use their skill within a short amount of time. That’s assuming you can even get the monster you want to even spawn, as some monsters have extremely low appearance rates.
The world is really big, which is good, but you don’t unlock any form of fast travel until pretty far in the game, and even you still have to do a LOT of walking. You can unlock the ability to move faster on the map… after you 100% the game.
The story is still excellent, up until about the last third or fourth part of the game. In the original version, you finally get to the antagonist, defeat them, and then the game just ends right there. In this version, after you beat the main antagonist, another boss randomly shows up, you defeat them, and then the game just ends after that.
It’s a shame that such an amazing idea and story ended up being wasted potential.
2021
Tails of Iron is kind of a chill soulsborne influenced side-scrolling action game.
The story is simple, but effective. The dialogue does basically boil down to characters showing 2 or 3 icons (out of about 10) in a speech bubble and Geralt of Rivia translating it for the player. Probably could’ve done without the speech bubbles in my opinion. There’s also a quite a bit of mandatory side quests and constant backtracking, which only exists to drag out the gameplay and is pretty annoying.
The combat is a simplified version of soulsborne games modified for a 2-D plane. It’s mostly fun, but can get a bit repetitive after a while. My biggest gripe is that enemies can take forever to shuffle themselves into combat.
If you’re wanting to get into the soulsborne genre, I think Tails of Iron is a good first step to ease you into it.
The story is simple, but effective. The dialogue does basically boil down to characters showing 2 or 3 icons (out of about 10) in a speech bubble and Geralt of Rivia translating it for the player. Probably could’ve done without the speech bubbles in my opinion. There’s also a quite a bit of mandatory side quests and constant backtracking, which only exists to drag out the gameplay and is pretty annoying.
The combat is a simplified version of soulsborne games modified for a 2-D plane. It’s mostly fun, but can get a bit repetitive after a while. My biggest gripe is that enemies can take forever to shuffle themselves into combat.
If you’re wanting to get into the soulsborne genre, I think Tails of Iron is a good first step to ease you into it.
Callisto Protocol is a Dead Space knockoff from the original creators of Dead Space. The idea behind making a spiritual successor to a fan favorite series makes sense, but the developers seemed to have forgotten what it is that made Dead Space so good in the first place.
The plot is kinda everywhere, and nothing ties together until the last hour or two. A lot of the dialogue exists only as buildup for a cheap jumpscare.
I found the concept of the combat to be somewhat interesting. It revolves around dodging attacks, melee when you get an opportunity, and shooting once their defenses are down. But honestly you can just stealth kill or melee all of the enemies except the one boss and the 4-ish mini bosses.
The ‘horror’ aspect relies a little too much on cheap jumpscares (a common problem of modern horror), and the actually impressive amount of gory death scenes.
Not the worst game I’ve ever played, but I think it would be a really solid game if they leaned in more on the survival horror side instead of action, focusing on stealth and melee combat (with only one gun instead of the five unnecessary ones you can unlock).
If you’ve never played Dead Space are interested in it, at least give it a shot. Otherwise just play Dead Space.
The plot is kinda everywhere, and nothing ties together until the last hour or two. A lot of the dialogue exists only as buildup for a cheap jumpscare.
I found the concept of the combat to be somewhat interesting. It revolves around dodging attacks, melee when you get an opportunity, and shooting once their defenses are down. But honestly you can just stealth kill or melee all of the enemies except the one boss and the 4-ish mini bosses.
The ‘horror’ aspect relies a little too much on cheap jumpscares (a common problem of modern horror), and the actually impressive amount of gory death scenes.
Not the worst game I’ve ever played, but I think it would be a really solid game if they leaned in more on the survival horror side instead of action, focusing on stealth and melee combat (with only one gun instead of the five unnecessary ones you can unlock).
If you’ve never played Dead Space are interested in it, at least give it a shot. Otherwise just play Dead Space.
It should be stated that Interaction Isn’t Explicit isn’t a video game first and foremost, but rather an attempt at being an interactive educational art piece about game design.
It is very impressive visually, but since almost everything is in black and white it can difficult to understand what you’re even looking at sometimes. The sound design is great, and is accompanied by a beautiful synthwave style soundtrack.
The game goes into detail about various game design mechanics and philosophies, even citing games that supposedly do these the best. But at the same time it usually fails to uphold these same philosophies, having clunky controls, messy combat and often confusing level design.
The developer’s biases towards which games are ‘good’ and which are ‘bad’ become more pronounced as you progress. In a project like this, having such obvious biases are unnecessary and does more harm than if you were to take a neutral stance.
The developer claims that Shadow of the Colossus is the greatest game ever made that nothing released since even compares to it. That is not true at all and is merely a subjective opinion.
If you are interested in learning about basic game design philosophies being applied in a more practical (yet clunky and somewhat pretentious) context rather than reading about it in a book, definitely consider playing this.
It is very impressive visually, but since almost everything is in black and white it can difficult to understand what you’re even looking at sometimes. The sound design is great, and is accompanied by a beautiful synthwave style soundtrack.
The game goes into detail about various game design mechanics and philosophies, even citing games that supposedly do these the best. But at the same time it usually fails to uphold these same philosophies, having clunky controls, messy combat and often confusing level design.
The developer’s biases towards which games are ‘good’ and which are ‘bad’ become more pronounced as you progress. In a project like this, having such obvious biases are unnecessary and does more harm than if you were to take a neutral stance.
The developer claims that Shadow of the Colossus is the greatest game ever made that nothing released since even compares to it. That is not true at all and is merely a subjective opinion.
If you are interested in learning about basic game design philosophies being applied in a more practical (yet clunky and somewhat pretentious) context rather than reading about it in a book, definitely consider playing this.
2021
Toem is a very cute and relaxing puzzle game. The puzzles aren’t super difficult, but they aren’t supposed to be.
I only wish there was a tiny bit more color in the game, as the monochrome starts to hurt my eyes after a while.
If you need a palette cleanser type game, definitely consider Toem.
I only wish there was a tiny bit more color in the game, as the monochrome starts to hurt my eyes after a while.
If you need a palette cleanser type game, definitely consider Toem.
Nobody Saves the World is an ugly cute RPG revolving around transforming into different characters for puzzles and combat.
The gameplay is interesting, with every transformation having different playstyles. Each transformation has its own set of quests you must complete to level them up and unlock more abilities for them. These quests are cool, as not only do they teach you how to play the characters, they encourage you to mix and match abilities with them, letting you experiment with different combat builds.
The dungeons are fine, but they tend to feel the same after a while, even with the different aesthetics and modifications trying to make them unique or challenging.
The story is basic and somewhat predictable, but I think it’s written well enough to not be boring or overbearing. The humor is kinda hit or miss though, as the game’s style of humor isn’t for everyone, and some jokes overstay their welcome a bit.
All in all, a fun game to play in short bursts, or as a quick time killer.
The gameplay is interesting, with every transformation having different playstyles. Each transformation has its own set of quests you must complete to level them up and unlock more abilities for them. These quests are cool, as not only do they teach you how to play the characters, they encourage you to mix and match abilities with them, letting you experiment with different combat builds.
The dungeons are fine, but they tend to feel the same after a while, even with the different aesthetics and modifications trying to make them unique or challenging.
The story is basic and somewhat predictable, but I think it’s written well enough to not be boring or overbearing. The humor is kinda hit or miss though, as the game’s style of humor isn’t for everyone, and some jokes overstay their welcome a bit.
All in all, a fun game to play in short bursts, or as a quick time killer.