The presentation of this gacha game auto-battler is actually extremely well done. The art is detailed and the live 2D is pretty well done, if excessive at times. The waifu art isn't exactly to my taste though. Some of the proportions go way too overboard imo, and that combined with the baby-like faces that the artists like to use a lot kinda give me some creepy vibes, I don't know. That being said, the gameplay is nonexistent, you kinda just put your best characters on a team and then press the auto and fast forward buttons. There's not even really that much of an emphasis on gear builds and team composition strategy like other games in the genre. There's just grinding and many ways to use money to skip grinding. Yet another flashy slot-machine game made explicitly to attract whales with bells and whistles, who would've thought.

Great for college dropouts. A story that attempts to combine the personal story of a directionless millennial youth with the setting of an economically declining rustbelt town nostalgic for the good old days. The central mystery driving the plot almost immediately takes a back seat for most of the game in favor of the actual main focus of the game, which is just hanging out with friends, reading witty dialogue, and awkwardly trying to avoid talking about why you dropped out of college. As much as I enjoyed the fun and riffy interactions between Mae and her friends, I would have liked just a bit more focus on the actual mystery side of the plot. But overall, the game still offers a heartfelt and quirky experience. Would definitely recommend to my fellow disaffected Midwesterners in their 20s.

Still the best item shop game out there currently. Atmosphere is pleasant, characters are cute, and the free market randomness is just chaotic enough to be interesting throughout many playthroughs. But good god, do I HATE the dungeons. The actual combat is so uninteresting and tedious and the grind has never been realer, especially when the game is specifically based around crafting and finding specific random drops. The haggling is SO fun though, and if it wasn't for the damn dungeons eating up what feels like half of the play time I'd be playing this a lot more.

A fun, cheerful rhythm game featuring various electronic tracks from Chinese/Japanese artists. Honestly pretty good for music discovery for this genre since I have absolutely no idea how I would ever even come across Chinese language EDM otherwise. The presentation is incredibly polished and the anime girls' designs really nail the cute/sexy feel they're going for. The gameplay feels a little simplistic though, as there's really only two "lanes," the ground and air. Perfectly suited for mobile, though on PC it feels a bit lacking in depth compared to other rhythm games.

This game is basically split in two, gameplay-wise. There's an rts part, where you play as a dragon with a jetpack commanding your troops on the field, and a politics part, where you decide policy issues for the new government you're making which effect both the rts game as well as your relationships with each of the fantasy race's representatives. The rts part's just okay, it's a little janky, even. The politics part is more compelling, as the character writing's pretty good. While the representatives are basically just caricatures of political ideologies (the elf's an environmentalist, the dwarf's a capitalist, etc.), they're pretty dang funny caricatures. Accurate even, I dare say. Your officers are also pretty well developed, and I loved hearing what they had to say. I especially loved Scarlett. She's great! Also unexpectedly pretty good queer representation, how 'bout that?

The only deal better than 5 dollars for Vampire Survivors is 0 dollars for Holocure. The comparison here is pretty much unavoidable as this survivors-like is the most unashamedly similar to VS than all the other imitators in this new subgenre. It's also probably the best out of all of them so far. Pretty much every weapon in VS has a direct correlate in Holocure but it's the additions to the formula that set this fangame apart from the others.

Giving each character their own unique weapon and set of unique abilities makes each run really feel different and the addition of a strafe button is honestly a godsend. The animations are cute and lively as well. I believe the creator was actually the animator for River City Girls and one of the Shantae games which explains the quality. Also, as the game is tailor-made for Hololive fans, literally everything is some kind of inside joke. I had to look up a video explaining all of the references and I've never felt so disconnected to the youth in my life. Even if you're like me and don't understand a lot of the memes the game is just mechanically so fun and addicting that you'll enjoy it anyway. It's also free, so there's pretty much no reason not to just give it a try to see if you'll like it.

Probably one of the steepest learning curves in gaming as well as arguably the most complex out of all the esports. There's so many moving parts, so many mechanics, and so much to learn you could honestly dedicate the rest of your life to getting good at this game. I literally spent a hundred hours in this game and still felt like a beginner. At some point I realized I'd probably have to spend another hundred hours to actually get to a skill level I'd be satisfied with at which point I decided: "Actually I'm good, thanks." This game's a lot of fun if you lose your life to it, but I think most people will end up trying it out, realizing their inadequacy, and then eventually bouncing off. Not a bad esport though, if you know what's going on. It's kind of the (American) football of esports.