I kinda had Hell Pie on my radar, and eventually I snagged it from a Humble platformers bundle awhile ago. Kinda expected it's humor as a crutch and a game second-nothing to write home about. Come to my surprise that its actually pretty damn good. It's a weird blend between A Hat in Time & Conker's Bad Fur Day and it works.

I loved how Nate & Nugget controlled. They felt like if Hat Kid had a grappling hook at all times which made exploration really damn fun alongside collecting goodies. I liked how each world was basically a hub world with plenty to collect and explore alongside containing sub-levels that were linear-esque challenges that also contained a fair amount of goodies too. Its nothing super challenging, but when you get the hang of the grapple, its really fun to just tear through levels.

The game's visual and dialogue humor is very reminiscent of Conker's Bad Fur Day. This game is raunchy and has some gross out elements to it. That type of humor isn't for everyone obviously, I mostly chuckled at the absurdity of the whole game, with some NPCs being literal shitmunchers and the Spongebob/Ren & Stimpy-esque closeups the game threw at you when collecting ingredients.

I do wish there were more bosses, this game only has two which is a shame. Overall, I recommend checking this game out, if you can get by its visuals/humor you're in for a fun time.

A hop n' bop run of the mill 3D platformer that's inoffensive, but a decent time. It doesn't really do anything crazy or noteworthy which isn't a bad thing at all. This new game feels like a GCN/PS2 era game but with a higher budget with feel & visuals, this is a fairly pretty game fwiw.

It isn't perfect though, audio mixing is kinda jank in cutscenes. I didn't mind the voice acting, but it definitely provided some unintentionally funny moments but was still charming. Yeah some outdated trendy references were there but its only like what, 3-5 lines of dialogue in the game? It didn't bother me too much at all bro lmao people overblown the hell out of it.

Levels were fun to traverse and Kao was fun to control. He has a pretty standard moveset (he always did to my knowledge) so it was nice they kept that intact while adding some new things that felt right for this interpretation of him. He controls good! Music was aight.

Overall, while the game is solid and had a bit of tedium/repetition to it, this was a decently fine game. Its not some cashgrab, it was made out of love from the developers.

I mean hell they re-released his games on PC for basically pennies just so people can play em, they provided and made what they wanted out of love and not greed. I wish that genuine care still existed in the games industry (outside of indie devs of course they rule).

Trouble Witches Origin is a pretty fun schmup with cutesy visuals, tight gameplay, good OST, and a lot of replay value for a definitive release. 10 characters to boot (5 base game, 5 DLC, I bought Cotton cause she's cool) which is pretty nuts.

I really enjoyed the inventiveness of the Magic Square mechanic. Having the ability to slow bullets down to weave through tight patterns was cool, and I also liked the massive reward of cash when you slow down enemy/boss phase bullets and eliminate them. Very addicting. I also really like the inclusion of a shop system during gameplay, it definitely spiced up strategy on a per level basis.

This release has some hiccups though. While I did find the story mode entertaining in ways, a lot of it was unintentional cause of the screwy translation. Grammatical, spelling, and punctuation errors a-plenty! It was alright with Cotton though. She and Silk's dynamic from their series was preserved nicely, and I chuckled a lot with Cotton's banter towards the boss witches in the game's Story Mode.

Options are kinda limited too. You can't play the game in full screen. There is an option for it, it can be toggled, but it leads to the game crashing so you're forced to play the game windowed (at one size). Maybe there's a workaround for full screen? I wouldn't know, couldn't really find anything about that unfortunately.

Overall, I still recommend this game if you like schmups, or if you want to get into the genre. This game is pretty easy & approachable. Just be wary of the limited options and screwed up translation.

Pumpkin Jack is a pretty solid game with tight control, fairly challenging bosses, music oozing with personality, and spooky/whimsical visuals. The humor is very tongue in cheek, nothing I burst out laughing over, but a chuckle here and there. 4th wallbreaks did get a bit overused though which is meh. At least it didn't detract too much from the story which was a neat little spin on MediEvil's narrative.

The game was pretty fresh with variety, wasn't too big on moving minecarts full of holy water for a bit, but once action kicked in, it was fun. Especially those boss fights man. 3 hits while also being an actual threat in a good & challenging way. Awesome.

Alice: Madness Returns is not the most in-depth hack n slash game I've played, but its fun once you get ahold of its quirks. I'd compare its combat to Zelda with its platforming more akin to Mario.

I was stunned to see a game utilize a public domain IP in such a way that balances darkness, fear, and whimsy all wrapped up in a basket. The story was captivating and full of chills at points especially when you're slowly discovering the truth behind the deaths of Alice's family.

The game's visual identity compliments the game's direction and my goodness it holds up incredibly well all these years later.

I do have some gripes though:

>As fun as the levels were to explore and fetch collectables in, they did overstay their welcome at times with the repeat objectives.

>Lack of boss fights (outside of the final level) was a massive shame especially considering the first chapter was a huge tease.

>Finally, the music wasn't bad at all, it worked for what it was, but I wish it channeled in on that dark whimsy of the Wonderland American McGee envisioned.

Overall, a fun game that I'm definitely going to remember despite its flaws. It's a real damn shame that Alice: Asylum won't be happening for all we know. Screw you EA.

Cosmic Shake is a solid game that felt a bit misguided in its approach as a psuedo-spiritual successor to Battle for Bikini Bottom. Its a fun time, but I put it on equal footing/a twinge below The Movie Game but above Creature from the Krusty Krab.

As far as positives go: the original music was great, the game looked visually stunning, the fanservice to the source material was a delight (excluding the usage of songs from the show), and the game felt really good. Level design was really neat, they were big and encouraged exploration. The weirdness definitely felt like a marriage between BfBB's cohesion and CFTKK's fever dream nature.

In terms of negatives I didn't fully click with Spongebob's moveset. The bubble is situational at best and useless at worst and the glider killing your momentum between platforming really sucked. It's a shame cause I thought the levels were designed pretty well, I just wish Spongebob felt more fun to use than "kinda fun" ya know. Enemy variety was too little and none felt like an obstacle at all which is a shame cause BfBB & Movie Game seemed to understand the challenge curve between them well.

Madam Cassandra & the final boss were a huge missed opportunity. While I do appreciate the final boss throwing a slight nod to a scrapped concept from BfBB, its one of the easiest bosses in the game, it doesn't even really have music, and its a bit of salt on the wound ontop of the game's underwhelming ending. Cassandra was set up as the antagonist but she didn't really have much of a motive. which is weird with that being the case cause the boss of the game's last level had a really good motive, and the boss fight was a bit better.

The presentation like I said, looked gorgeous, but there was some noticeably odd moments where the characters didn't feel animated enough with cutscenes & dialogue., their expressions and mannerisms didn't really match up well with what they had to say at times. As much as I appreciate the fanservice, the game didn't need to include songs from the show in it. Not only did it break my immersion, it just didn't fit in spots where they used the songs, and I personally prefer when licensed games have soundtracks that are adjacent with the source material. Spongebob's videogame track record with music was pretty damn good so I'm not sure why they decided to throw in show songs alongside having a pretty damn solid original OST.

Overall, Cosmic Shake is a fine game with some issues that make it fall short. Spongebob fans will likely get a kick out of it more (and I say this as a Spongebob fan) than those not into Spongebob. But it is a worthwhile playthrough.

Adding a NG+ feature would definitely mitigate the issue I had with the ending...

Two decades or so later, this version of Um Jammer Lammy became completely found media and its up on the Internet Archive! Never thought I'd see the day ever since I learned about this version since middle school, but I'm so glad it happened.

Anyway, its pretty much the PS1 game but tweaked around to fit an arcade setting. There's 3 stages per difficulty, a ton of never before seen material with Joe Chin made specifically for this version of the game, and the ability to do co-op, battle, and play as Parappa in the first stage of the game, something that was initially planned for the PS1 original but was scrapped.

If you're a fan of Parappa or Lammy you owe it to yourself to check out this holy grail. It's the best thing we've gotten in years.

I love Bugsnax.

I was expecting to go into this game with a neutral/positive outlook. A game I'd play, focus on main objectives, have some minor frustrations here and there, finish it, and just say "that was solid, I liked it." and move on...But then I got hooked. I got into the groove with what the game had to offer: Capturing bugsnax was addictive, fun, and I love how the game encourages & rewards experimentation. I found the Grumpuses charming, funny, and having a surprising amount of deep characterization to them when you learn of their struggles and how you help them through it all. And that ending man, not only was the twist earned, but the (good) ending made the entire experience worth fully completing to me.

I'd genuinely consider Bugsnax in my Top 5 Indie games right now. Stellar work to the team behind it.

I've only ever played the demo of the first game on 3DS and I knew for a fact it was definitely a great game. I copped the striker pack awhile ago and yeah, Gunvolt 1 is good, while Gunvolt 2 is GREAT.

The game definitely has a skill curve to it, but once you get things down, it all clicks, and the game rewards you for it. The story between the two games was fairly solid, a bit predictable at times, so I wasn't fully invested as I wanted to be, but the characters are all pretty charming and funny so I wasn't completely out of touch. Copen took a bit for me to click in GV2, but his play style is really fun and rewarding in it's own right.

I definitely recommend the Striker Pack as the best way to play these two games, and if you're into stuff like Mega Man Gunvolt will likely be up your alley. (I'm not sure if the GV1 Steam port got fixed so bear in mind if you wanna get the series on PC).