Quite honestly, if the devs let this game cook for like another year or however long, I think they really could've had something special on their hands.

“KAMIKO” is a short level based arcade styled beat em' up. The game consists of four(?) short and simple stages. Each stage requiring a tiny bit more of your puzzle solving skills than the last. It takes a good hour or so to beat the game on your first run and around 30 minutes, even less, for subsequent replays with any character. Once you've completed the first run, the maps become super easy to navigate and become even more and more menial. There isn't much replay value to be found to be honest. I didn't notice any storytelling elements that changed with whatever character you chose, though each character has their own unique way of playstyle. I think this is another one of the missed opportunities this game has. Furthermore, I really wish they would have expanded upon the individual selections of the character's more than just gameplay.

Oh! Additionally, one of the puzzles involves you pressing a switch and narrowly making it across a bridge that persists for just the tiniest amount of time. If you get sidetracked for even the slightest moment, you'll have to retry until succession. Meanwhile, enemies keep respawning. Again. And again. And there's nothing you can do to make them not respawn. Wonderful.

Combat in this game is really lacking in depth, progression throughout stages sees character benefits only in health and stamina. While playing the stages, the buffs may seem trivial due to the fact that there's no punishment for dying, as you respawn back to life with full health and stamina at the cost of 5 seconds of waiting. The final boss is really going to require you to have those health bonuses if you play reckless, though. Honestly, I believe that if they had let this sit in development for a bit longer, we would have had a game with a more compelling story and probably even a better combat system. Mashing “A” while dashing between all 4 corners of the map gets boring, in addition to the infinite enemy respawns and limited health spawn points. 4 times. Without any significant changes.

The gameplay also switches between playing like a Zelda-like game to spontaneously becoming a bullet-hell. That switch-bridge puzzle I mentioned earlier? Yeah, there's like 2 or 3 of those. Grabbing a key to open up a door? Great! Just traverse the entire map while the enemies you killed 5 minutes ago respawn again and make your way to the door without getting hit. Grabbing an orb to place on a pedestal? Nice! Just know that you have to do that twice or else you can't progress. Also, the orbs are located in different areas. You'll have to play this pseudo bullet-hell game 3 times in a level. You can't fight back until you place the item in its respective area or until you get hit and drop the orb. Easily one of my most disliked aspects of the game.

On the contrary, the art and music direction is super cute. I think this is honestly the best part about the game. They really nailed the pixel art for what it's worth, to be honest. I wish they had used the style featured on the game's cover as the style of the graphics. I prefer that and the style of the character CG's much more than the actual sprites featured during gameplay. Not going to complain much on that front since the game is absolutely dirt cheap.

TLDR: Short but sweet beat em' up that I personally believe had the potential to be so much more. Pickup when it's on sale, it ends up costing like $2, I think it's worth the +1 hour of playtime.

SUITS: ABSOLUTE POWER is a sequel to a game that didn't really need anything more to its story. Already ripping off of other tried and true ideas and mechanics, Absolute Power manages to evoke nothing interesting or innovating. The change in art style strikes me as strange as it tries to juggle between 3 styles. The paper-esque drawn visuals of the combat, the pixel sprites atop a drawn overworld, and the gritter drawn cutscene images. Maintaining absolutely no consistency, simultaneously incapable of honing the craft in any of the 3.

Combat is atrocious, to the point where the entire game is RNG based. The RNG mechanics can primarily be seen in his primary attacking skill, which has a chance to strike upwards of 3 times (at least as I've seen through gameplay). The attack multiplier increases the more times it hits, most of the time during late game if you're lucky enough to strike a 3x gunfire you'll just kill the enemy entirely. I was hitting shots dealing 6k damage, just absolutely trivializing any challenge that came my way. This doesn't help when, once you've reached halfway, every 5 minutes you'll reach a new store with new gear that just overpowers the hell out of your team, making enemy encounters less of a challenge and more of a tedious time waster. Eventually bosses became indistinguishable from regular enemy encounters and I hadn't even realized when I did something that would push the story along. Everything regarding combat and story is so sloppily put together. CEO has a skill that compromises defense for increased attack of equal value. Lose 30 def, gain 30 atk. Simple, right? Not quite, as whatever fucking math they're using just does not work whatsoever and more often than not you will feel absolutely no change in your attack, but you WILL suffer the loss of defense, making the skill absolutely useless. If you keep using the skill, your atk/def rise/decrease will get higher and higher, but you still won't see any noticeable benefits for your attack rising. Skills just in general are so bullshit and seriously not worth the effort of using outside of turn 1 for your other companions, as the hit rates are so egregiously low, you'd be better off just spamming your primary attack until the battle is won.

Combat is also brought down by the way in which the game engages with it, sending you on a fetch quest to end with a battle, then sending you on another fetch quest that ends with a battle, this is the formula for the entire game. All the comedic bits it sends you through are chronically unfunny and just completely annoying to go through as you meander through an ever larger monochrome world, constantly getting lost in the bleak appearance of everything. It isn't fun. Somehow, while upgrading engines, absolutely nothing on the first game was improved. Why was this made?

Music and story I'd like to talk about if there was anything worth talking about at all. Both equally unimpressive and forgettable. It's to the point where I'd argue that spending time talking about either would be a waste of my time thinking and writing about it, and then having someone read it would be just offensive to them and their time.

Never in my however many years of playing video games has a game caught my attention like TF2. The memories I've made playing TF2 are truly unrivaled, and I have much to thank them for.

TF2 was my first proper introduction to multiplayer shooters, trading, all while harboring a festering desire of mine to become truly great at the game. A feat which I'm yet to surpass, well over 1000 hours into the game. The influence held by this game is so immense, and I have nothing but the utmost level of respect and disdain towards valve for creating a near perfect shooter while simultaneously ignoring and allowing the game to go unloved.

A masterpiece of a class based shooter which deserves much praise for all that it has accomplished within the 15 years it has been alive and kicking.

The foundation is perfect, the core gameplay leaves so much to be developed on top of the base idea. The door is open for so many opportunities.

And yet?

At first, you'll have fun for a bit. The gameplay is refreshing, the mechanics are really neat, etc, etc. After a while you'll realize the forumla barely changes or innovates on itself and eventually you'll realize it's like this for the entire game.

Mr. Shifty decides to rely on redundancy for about 4/5ths of the game. There's the occasional new enemy type, weapon type, or level design which might force you to slightly alter how you go about tackling the game, but a majority of the time there aren't really any major ideas or changes which enhance the teleportation mechanic. No upgrades and no interesting interactions via "shifting," it is what it is. Halfway through the game I was already feeling like getting it over with, they run out of content and new ideas to utilize so quickly and playing the game feels like an absolute chore. Its difficulty is founded on frustrating slop where they place enemies and weapons wherever they felt like without any real second thought to it, stage-design likewise. Some levels are stupidly easy and some levels are obscene in difficulty because there's no real thought behind level design. Some sections might have long periods of fights without a screen transition meaning you have to endure for however long it requires, and sometimes the screen transition happens 5 seconds after entering a room. If/when the game crashes, you're expected to restart from the very beginning of the stage because of an oversight. Fun!

On the topic of enemies, the AI is just fucking stupid. It's completely inconsistent in how it acts and at times just completely broken and unresponsive. They feel so rough and annoying to deal with. It doesn't help that it feels this way for over half of the cast of enemies.

Story doesn't really have anything to offer either, it's very elementary. "Big bad guy has something in his tower and you need to KILL him." The humor doesn't alleviate the boring story because it's just as bland and lame.

Quit the game over a year ago (February 2021)

The story, gameplay, and every aspect of the game is not worth your time in the slightest. Within the ~200 hours I sunk into this game I probably could've finished numerous other games. As one of the better gacha games I've played, it's just awful man. Please do not sink your time into playing this game.

At best the game is meh and while I do believe that it is a bit fun to play with friends for the love of god don't play this game solo (or at all really).

One of the few games where I can say that the gameplay is so gripping and the music is so good that I'm only continuing to play despite the story being total dogass.

Counting this as mastered because I got Ace rank on every level and don't care for any of the visual novel stuff

I feel that it's important to note that I'm currently halfway through the game with only 3 hours in, I'm expecting to beat it at 6-7 hours which leaves the VN sections taking about 10-11 hours of the game's time which really annoys me because so far it's just poorly written.
I was right i beat it at 7 hours and 20 minutes lol

Upon rereading, my thoughts have become a lot clearer regarding this.

I'd like to view its existence as something more than only being a game. Yes it's very clear that it plays like a game, it shouldn't necessarily be rated or critiqued and in doing so would be insulting to the author.

This is, in my eyes, a journal entry adapted to fit stylistically in the world of Cave Story. A style much similar to the other game created by Bagenzo, Madotsuki's Closet. It isn't created as a work to be enjoyed in a traditional sense. You are looking into, what I interpret to be, an autobiographical memory or some turning point for the creator.

I think it's best to view this as a creation birthed from self-healing and personal reflection. Intent behind the creation is suited for the creator, not you.

Also check out Madotsuki's Closet if this game struck you in any way shape or form

After completing the game on numerous runs, I can say that I have unfortunately warmed up to this game and like it a bit more now. Original review below.

Enter the Gungeon, but for people who are fans of
-Big boobs
-Crammed rooms
-Big boobs
-Newgrounds

The Denpa Men: They Came By Wave

Just what the fuck is a Denpa Men? er.. Denpa Man?

The Denpa Men is a trilogy (in the west, it's a tetralogy in Japan) of monster catching turn-based JRPGs exclusively played on the Nintendo 3ds. Judging off of their JP presence, I'd like to infer that it was massively much more popular overseas than it was in the States (or anywhere else for that matter).

But before delving into the game itself, I'd like to talk about myself and my relation to the game.

I have a lot of personal connection to this game, as with that, my viewing of the game inherently will massively differ from the viewpoint and opinions of others. I recall this as being one of my first true involvements with an online community surrounding a game à la being active within the space of creating YouTube videos on a now defunct google account and also participating within Reddit (🤓) communities surrounding the game.

So, why do I bring this all up?

I feel that my attachment and love for the uniqueness of the game doesn't go unfounded. When I heard about the deactivation of the Nintendo 3ds/Wii U Eshops, I came to the realization that this game will not, in any capacity, ever be able to be experienced in its true capacity. It was Pokémon Go before Pokémon Go. Utilizing just about all of the 3ds' features to their extent; camera + gyro functionality to capture creatures, utilizing both local internet connections and radio waves to generate said creatures, and other more menial features like utilizing streetpass & system play coins (albeit in the sequels) just simply cannot be recreated via any other means of playing.

A remaster for modern consoles simply couldn't work, maybe the Nintendo Switch could produce something of similarity, but there would be much lost upon the shift to hardware lacking the uniquely weird capabilities and features the 3ds had. Especially when clawing into the nature of the future games. This is all without mentioning the dual-screen feature of the 3ds.

Ok, enough talking about the unique mechanical aspects of the game, why I am throating this game front to back?

Denpa Men and more specifically The Radio Wave Men has a very unique take on the character collectathon genre of games. As stated prior, the generation of characters is tied to YOUR surroundings. It forces you to get up and move around to new locations to unlock more characters to find. Fighting a boss that requires a certain type of Denpa Man that you don't have? Time to get off your ass and get moving buddy you gotta hunt for that shit in the real world. I think by far this part of the gameplay was most appealing to me as a kid (and in retrospect as an adult too) because the 3ds already encouraged the whole "real world moving" for play coins and street pass. It felt great to have another bonus for carrying my 3ds around with me because at any time I could pop it open and check on the Denpa Men nearby to see if I was convienently in a spot that would generate characters to help me progress along the story.

Moving along the actual core combat gameplay, it gets a bit more nuanced than "catch Denpa Men, play game, win." The game was demanding and expecting a lot more of the player. Outside of the typical typings of your characters, there are multiple factors which have a hand in the usage of a Denpa Men. This image depicts most, if not all,of the various antennae that they can be generated with. DM1 has a more concise list, but DM2 and DM3 expand on the prior antennae types far more like I literally can't find a dedicated list anywhere online so you'll just have to trust me on this lol.

So, Denpa Men are generated on the following conditions:

Antenna: None < standard attacking antenna < single support/debuff < AOE attacking antenna < AOE supporting/debuffing
Color: Red, Blue, Teal, Orange, Green, White, and Black in addition to mixed color varaitions with their own unique stats
Cosmetic: Face, height, skin color, accessories, and head shape.

In addition to how the game creates a highly unique and customized expeirence on a per player basis, there's really not a set way to win the game that will cater to everyone. Two people within the same town might have wildly different party members as a result of what radio and internet waves are local to them and at that, a rare character (denoted by sparkles when appearing in the capture mode) that generated by you may not generate for anyone who goes to the location in which you caught it. Additionally utilizing radio and internet waves makes the game viable for just about anyone regardless of location.

I know I'm hopping throughout topics a bit hard here but please bear with me, back on the topic of combat. Your party will start out with a max capacity of 4 members, then 6, and then 8. It opens the doors further and further for party customization and resource management. As the location difficulty increases, you WILL need to catch more Denpa Men, more equipment to fit out your Denpa Men, and more healing items to get you through dungeons.

Ultimately, this culminates into an experience which, by its end, has you progress along a very basic and barebones story with combat and experiences far more unique than most other turn-based JRPGs I've played. But this game ultimately pales in comparison to the future titles, taking all of the unqiue aspects of this game and cranking it way the fuck up.

I'm surprised I've made it this far without making mentions of the artstyle or music utilized by the game. Lets talk about it.

Denpa Men are Katamari-adjacent little guys. I don't really know what to say about the artstyle if I'm being honest. It's pretty generic and the monsters are typical of that which you'd find in a JRPG. The music, however, is one of the aspect where the game shines.

The OST opts for a very electric sounding vibe. Listen to the title track of the game and you'll have a general understanding on the music of the game. It's unique and cute and I love everything about it. Some complaints I have are that there's 1 battle track so it can get pretty repetitive quickly but that's about the worst of it I think. The Boss theme and Great Demon King theme are fucking bangers though I'm never changing my mind on that idc if I'm biased or nostalgia blind idc that shit bangs. Enough of that, I think the music is pretty bangin'.

Conclusion: If you have a 3ds play this game. Or don't. Free will.