Full video review: https://youtu.be/d_VtMJoQQ8s
UNDER NIGHT IN-BIRTH is back yet again. This time though, we went from changing the game’s subtitle to slapping a 2 on the name. And yeah, it’s still just as fun, and.. well, difficult.
Gameplay
UNDER NIGHT IN-BIRTH is basically an anime fighter along the same vein as Guilty Gear or BlazBlue. I would say it’s more difficult than Strive, but maybe on par with BlazBlue. I don’t know - that’s all subjective anyways. That said, I liked the past two entries in this series and yeah, I like this one too, but it’s not without its issues.
Starting with the good though: The movement. This is probably my favorite thing about the game. It just, flows so well, if that makes sense. You have so many options to dash, jump, and move around the screen that once you get the hang of things, it is a very fast-paced and satisfying experience. That and the characters themselves are pretty solid, for the most part. Plenty of variety there - grapplers, zoners, rushdowns, all of that - and I always like a good fighting game where more than a handful of characters click with me. That said, Merkava is still my favorite. He’s just so noodly and fun to play.
Tutorials
The game also does a really good job with its tutorial system. There are over 100 different tutorials, each with demo videos and a walkthrough to help you through them. And then on top of that there are character combo guides and general strategy guides for each and every character. It goes to great lengths to get you into the experience, which is definitely warranted given just how hard a fighting game this is.
Multiplayer
If you’re looking to hop into the game and don’t already have friends to play it with - you’ll be subjected to the game’s online mode. On one hand, there’s actually rollback netcode which is super nice for a niche 2D fighter like this, but on the other, there are not that many active players just hanging out in the game’s online lobbies and when you do find a match, it’s likely going to be someone way higher rank than you. People call this series a Discord fighter - meaning you have to hop on servers dedicated to the game to find matches - and that still holds true with this sequel - even if the online playerbase is double that of the last game, averaging around 200 online at any one time.
I spent some time in singleplayer, but honestly, those modes just aren’t that great. The arcade mode is pretty standard, but comes with a boring storyline and the time attack and score attacks are just vaguely different ways to play the arcade mode basically. Multiplayer is pretty much a necessity for this one and the most fun I had was duking it out with friends locally - and this is definitely one I’ll be keeping installed for that very reason.
Various
I’m still not a fan of how tight diagonal inputs are, it just doesn’t feel right to me, but pretty much everything else is solid. The art is just as great as its always been, the music is excellent, the stages are cool and really just remind me of the Fate series, and the level of polish on top of it all is really impressive given the size of its developer.
Overall
UNDER NIGHT IN-BIRTH II Sys:Celes is worth a recommendation, but maybe not for the general audience. If you’re not already into fighting games, definitely pass on it, and if you’re not specifically into 2D anime fighters, then probably pass on it too. It’s got quite the learning curve, but is fun to play with friends and the addition of rollback netcode actually makes the game playable online too - even if the playerbase is small. The PC port apparently had issues on launch, but playing a couple months later, I can’t say I had any issues, so there’s that too.
UNDER NIGHT IN-BIRTH is back yet again. This time though, we went from changing the game’s subtitle to slapping a 2 on the name. And yeah, it’s still just as fun, and.. well, difficult.
Gameplay
UNDER NIGHT IN-BIRTH is basically an anime fighter along the same vein as Guilty Gear or BlazBlue. I would say it’s more difficult than Strive, but maybe on par with BlazBlue. I don’t know - that’s all subjective anyways. That said, I liked the past two entries in this series and yeah, I like this one too, but it’s not without its issues.
Starting with the good though: The movement. This is probably my favorite thing about the game. It just, flows so well, if that makes sense. You have so many options to dash, jump, and move around the screen that once you get the hang of things, it is a very fast-paced and satisfying experience. That and the characters themselves are pretty solid, for the most part. Plenty of variety there - grapplers, zoners, rushdowns, all of that - and I always like a good fighting game where more than a handful of characters click with me. That said, Merkava is still my favorite. He’s just so noodly and fun to play.
Tutorials
The game also does a really good job with its tutorial system. There are over 100 different tutorials, each with demo videos and a walkthrough to help you through them. And then on top of that there are character combo guides and general strategy guides for each and every character. It goes to great lengths to get you into the experience, which is definitely warranted given just how hard a fighting game this is.
Multiplayer
If you’re looking to hop into the game and don’t already have friends to play it with - you’ll be subjected to the game’s online mode. On one hand, there’s actually rollback netcode which is super nice for a niche 2D fighter like this, but on the other, there are not that many active players just hanging out in the game’s online lobbies and when you do find a match, it’s likely going to be someone way higher rank than you. People call this series a Discord fighter - meaning you have to hop on servers dedicated to the game to find matches - and that still holds true with this sequel - even if the online playerbase is double that of the last game, averaging around 200 online at any one time.
I spent some time in singleplayer, but honestly, those modes just aren’t that great. The arcade mode is pretty standard, but comes with a boring storyline and the time attack and score attacks are just vaguely different ways to play the arcade mode basically. Multiplayer is pretty much a necessity for this one and the most fun I had was duking it out with friends locally - and this is definitely one I’ll be keeping installed for that very reason.
Various
I’m still not a fan of how tight diagonal inputs are, it just doesn’t feel right to me, but pretty much everything else is solid. The art is just as great as its always been, the music is excellent, the stages are cool and really just remind me of the Fate series, and the level of polish on top of it all is really impressive given the size of its developer.
Overall
UNDER NIGHT IN-BIRTH II Sys:Celes is worth a recommendation, but maybe not for the general audience. If you’re not already into fighting games, definitely pass on it, and if you’re not specifically into 2D anime fighters, then probably pass on it too. It’s got quite the learning curve, but is fun to play with friends and the addition of rollback netcode actually makes the game playable online too - even if the playerbase is small. The PC port apparently had issues on launch, but playing a couple months later, I can’t say I had any issues, so there’s that too.
Full video review: https://youtu.be/VAWWetRNL5o
I don’t know about ASa Project anymore. They did the excellent Sankaku Renai, the okay Koikari, and now this one, which might just be my least favorite of the bunch.
Story & Writing
So basically, the whole thing with this one is that a sudden childhood friend shows up, confesses to the main character, and ignites a battle royale amongst the other heroines, all vying for the protag’s love. It’s pretty much your standard love rivalry setup, nothing too fancy.
ASa Project, the studio behind the game, is generally pretty good on the comedy front though and that’s usually what sets their games apart. For this one though… I can’t say they pulled through with it. You’ve got the perverted heroine that just becomes annoying, the constant onslaught of crude jokes that make the game feel like it was written by a middle schooler, and the whole battle royale thing has each heroine practically obsessed with the main character to the point of stalking and that being played off as a comedic thing just feels weird.
They went overboard on the comedy this time, to the point that the main story suffers. In fact, it’s hard to even see the main story here. Most of the common route is just various conversations between side characters, a lot of the time with the protagonist nowhere in sight. This can work if the characters are actually decent, but most have their one quirk that they practically embody and that is all you know them by. This doesn’t make for likable heroines, unfortunately.
Protagonist
The bigger issue though is that very main character. This is one of the flattest main characters I have ever seen in a romcom visual novel. The dude has no personality. No defining characteristics. He’s like a blank slate inserted into the story just so these heroines have a reason to exist. When he is with the heroines, he is just going with the flow and letting things happen. I know some romcom VNs like to create blank main characters to use as self-inserts, but this one is really pushing it.
Character Routes
Then there’s the character routes. As typical for this studio, they’re not the greatest. The romance comes across as shallow because the characters themselves are shallow and I would argue that a good chunk of each route, if not most of each route, are written with H-scenes in mind and the rest of the writing around that just kinda serves as filler. If you’re looking for a visual novel with good romance writing, this one is not it. If you’re just looking for an extension of the game’s comedic elements, then maybe you’ll get some enjoyment out of the routes.
Visuals & Music
The game at least has some decent visuals. I mean, it’s nothing too fancy, but the character designs are nicely done, I liked the brighter colors this game goes for, and the music isn’t grating - which is more than I can say for some others in the genre.
Settings
That and the game does a good job with its settings, giving us all the usuals plus some nice bonuses, like animation speeds. On a technical level, it’s pretty good, even if the max resolution caps out at 1600x900.
Overall
That said, I did not enjoy my time with this one and cannot say I recommend it. As someone that generally enjoys comedy visual novels, this one was a bit too over the top in that regard and felt like it was written by a teenager. The actual character routes suffer as a result and of course, none of this is benefitted by how flat the main character is either. It’s good on the technical level and with its presentation, but there are far better visual novels out there worth your time.
I don’t know about ASa Project anymore. They did the excellent Sankaku Renai, the okay Koikari, and now this one, which might just be my least favorite of the bunch.
Story & Writing
So basically, the whole thing with this one is that a sudden childhood friend shows up, confesses to the main character, and ignites a battle royale amongst the other heroines, all vying for the protag’s love. It’s pretty much your standard love rivalry setup, nothing too fancy.
ASa Project, the studio behind the game, is generally pretty good on the comedy front though and that’s usually what sets their games apart. For this one though… I can’t say they pulled through with it. You’ve got the perverted heroine that just becomes annoying, the constant onslaught of crude jokes that make the game feel like it was written by a middle schooler, and the whole battle royale thing has each heroine practically obsessed with the main character to the point of stalking and that being played off as a comedic thing just feels weird.
They went overboard on the comedy this time, to the point that the main story suffers. In fact, it’s hard to even see the main story here. Most of the common route is just various conversations between side characters, a lot of the time with the protagonist nowhere in sight. This can work if the characters are actually decent, but most have their one quirk that they practically embody and that is all you know them by. This doesn’t make for likable heroines, unfortunately.
Protagonist
The bigger issue though is that very main character. This is one of the flattest main characters I have ever seen in a romcom visual novel. The dude has no personality. No defining characteristics. He’s like a blank slate inserted into the story just so these heroines have a reason to exist. When he is with the heroines, he is just going with the flow and letting things happen. I know some romcom VNs like to create blank main characters to use as self-inserts, but this one is really pushing it.
Character Routes
Then there’s the character routes. As typical for this studio, they’re not the greatest. The romance comes across as shallow because the characters themselves are shallow and I would argue that a good chunk of each route, if not most of each route, are written with H-scenes in mind and the rest of the writing around that just kinda serves as filler. If you’re looking for a visual novel with good romance writing, this one is not it. If you’re just looking for an extension of the game’s comedic elements, then maybe you’ll get some enjoyment out of the routes.
Visuals & Music
The game at least has some decent visuals. I mean, it’s nothing too fancy, but the character designs are nicely done, I liked the brighter colors this game goes for, and the music isn’t grating - which is more than I can say for some others in the genre.
Settings
That and the game does a good job with its settings, giving us all the usuals plus some nice bonuses, like animation speeds. On a technical level, it’s pretty good, even if the max resolution caps out at 1600x900.
Overall
That said, I did not enjoy my time with this one and cannot say I recommend it. As someone that generally enjoys comedy visual novels, this one was a bit too over the top in that regard and felt like it was written by a teenager. The actual character routes suffer as a result and of course, none of this is benefitted by how flat the main character is either. It’s good on the technical level and with its presentation, but there are far better visual novels out there worth your time.
Video review: https://youtu.be/hIBgVpIbpXk
So Konosuba is a pretty good series. I have yet to read the light novels, but I love the anime and consider it one of the better comedy series out there. It seems like a good fit for a visual novel, given I also like comedy VNs. But they didn’t exactly give this one the treatment it deserved.
So if you remember a few years back, there was this Re:Zero visual novel released. To sum it up, it was terrible. A story that simply rehashes part of the anime with a slight twist and some tacked-on gameplay on top of that. In that sense, I have to give this Konosuba game some credit. This is not a simple rehash of some random arc in the story or even an alternate take on one.
This is instead a full-fledged side story that could very easily have been an episode in the show or something like that. I respect that. It’s nice to have these anime visual novels try to do something original and something worthwhile. Unfortunately, that’s kinda where my praise ends. The rest of this game is shallow, tedious, and way too low-effort for the price they are asking.
This is literally a $50 visual novel where the majority of the game is simple PNGs placed on top of the simplest of backgrounds with practically no animation. There are a decent amount of CGs, but nowhere near enough to justify the premium asking price. And really, the UI looks like something I would find in a mobile game. I try to avoid discussing price in my videos, but this is just egregious.
If you’re wondering the length? Well, it should take you around 5-10 hours to clear and probably more if you go for all the endings. Each of the main heroines has two endings and the rest of the side ones just have their one ending, but if I am being completely honest, I could not be bothered to even attempt to go for all of those after finishing the main story simply because the game makes it so difficult to do so.
Upon beating the game, you will need to go back and basically grind through the tedious gameplay elements of crafting clothing in order to fulfill the conditions to get on a character’s route. To make clothing, you have to send your party out on quests and part-time jobs to earn material, which can then be combined to make clothing via a magical stone. That’s a very Konosuba setup, I will give it that, but I can’t say it makes for fun gameplay.
The cycle of sending out on jobs, receiving a random assortment of material, trudging through a random slice of life scene in-between jobs, and eventually using the material to craft an item of clothing was really boring for me, a shame considering I like this series so much. It’s some mobile game quality gameplay and again, this is being sold at a premium price tag.
Otherwise, I can’t say that the story itself is bad - I mean, it definitely doesn’t compare to some of the highs from the anime, but I also cannot deny that Konosuba fans might find something to like here. It’s just that it’s all wrapped up in this poorly made video game - the type obviously just using the franchise to sell copies and if the Konosuba title was removed from it, this game likely wouldn’t have an audience at all.
Overall
So no, I cannot really say I recommend this one. Tedious and grindy gameplay, poor production quality, and a story that - while decent as a whole - doesn’t really measure up to the quality you would expect from this series. If anything, I just want to go read the light novels.
So Konosuba is a pretty good series. I have yet to read the light novels, but I love the anime and consider it one of the better comedy series out there. It seems like a good fit for a visual novel, given I also like comedy VNs. But they didn’t exactly give this one the treatment it deserved.
So if you remember a few years back, there was this Re:Zero visual novel released. To sum it up, it was terrible. A story that simply rehashes part of the anime with a slight twist and some tacked-on gameplay on top of that. In that sense, I have to give this Konosuba game some credit. This is not a simple rehash of some random arc in the story or even an alternate take on one.
This is instead a full-fledged side story that could very easily have been an episode in the show or something like that. I respect that. It’s nice to have these anime visual novels try to do something original and something worthwhile. Unfortunately, that’s kinda where my praise ends. The rest of this game is shallow, tedious, and way too low-effort for the price they are asking.
This is literally a $50 visual novel where the majority of the game is simple PNGs placed on top of the simplest of backgrounds with practically no animation. There are a decent amount of CGs, but nowhere near enough to justify the premium asking price. And really, the UI looks like something I would find in a mobile game. I try to avoid discussing price in my videos, but this is just egregious.
If you’re wondering the length? Well, it should take you around 5-10 hours to clear and probably more if you go for all the endings. Each of the main heroines has two endings and the rest of the side ones just have their one ending, but if I am being completely honest, I could not be bothered to even attempt to go for all of those after finishing the main story simply because the game makes it so difficult to do so.
Upon beating the game, you will need to go back and basically grind through the tedious gameplay elements of crafting clothing in order to fulfill the conditions to get on a character’s route. To make clothing, you have to send your party out on quests and part-time jobs to earn material, which can then be combined to make clothing via a magical stone. That’s a very Konosuba setup, I will give it that, but I can’t say it makes for fun gameplay.
The cycle of sending out on jobs, receiving a random assortment of material, trudging through a random slice of life scene in-between jobs, and eventually using the material to craft an item of clothing was really boring for me, a shame considering I like this series so much. It’s some mobile game quality gameplay and again, this is being sold at a premium price tag.
Otherwise, I can’t say that the story itself is bad - I mean, it definitely doesn’t compare to some of the highs from the anime, but I also cannot deny that Konosuba fans might find something to like here. It’s just that it’s all wrapped up in this poorly made video game - the type obviously just using the franchise to sell copies and if the Konosuba title was removed from it, this game likely wouldn’t have an audience at all.
Overall
So no, I cannot really say I recommend this one. Tedious and grindy gameplay, poor production quality, and a story that - while decent as a whole - doesn’t really measure up to the quality you would expect from this series. If anything, I just want to go read the light novels.
Full video review: https://youtu.be/fZYGoqzz3lM
Banishers is basically what you would get if you took God of War and gave it a little bit of the Sherlock Holmes treatment. It’s an interesting combo that has both its pros and cons.
Combat
Overall, the combat is pretty good. Hits have weight behind them, there’s a few different weapon types to mix and match mid-fight, the movement feels fluid, dodging, parrying, and blocking are responsive, and there’s an entire skill tree with new moves and such to add even more flavor. For not being the focus of the experience, the studio did a pretty good job making the combat fun to play.
That said, it really suffers with its enemy variety. It gets kinda boring fighting the same type of ghosts over and over throughout the game, especially since the only visual difference between most of them is their color. The boss fights are cool, but there aren’t enough of them to break up the otherwise monotonous enemies.
Exploration & Level Design
Exploration is also a big part of the experience and something Banishers does well. The level design in particular is solid. You have this large map to explore complete with branching paths, plenty of side objectives, towns with people to get to know, beautiful scenery, and I am just kinda a sucker for medieval/fantasy infused aesthetics and the world here in Banishers absolutely nails that.
One thing I really was not a fan of was the whole crafting/upgrading element. It reminded me of games like A Plague Tale or even God of War, where it’s just kinda tacked on to the experience and there to give you an excuse to wander around more to find more grass, stone, and other random material to collect for future upgrades. That aspect was not really fleshed out and came across as tedious as a result.
Story
I liked the overarching plot. Two banishers - basically ghost hunters or paranormal investigators - traveling around solving cases and ultimately trying to decide the fate of Antea, your partner who herself is a ghost. It’s a great set up to tie together the rest of the game, which ultimately comes across as episodic.
That can be good or bad depending on the person. You have this goal of reaching New Eden - the town where your partner died - but must stop along the way to assist with cases that ultimately have no relation to the rest of the plot. Some of these cases are genuinely interesting, some are bad, but most are just okay. You’ll get one that dives into a couple characters and raises some great questions about topics like death, relationships, and what it takes to survive in the world, and then one that has a very predictable and boring twist with surface-level characters.
I would say for the most part, the cases are interesting, but there are quite a lot that just aren’t and you’re forced to go through them to progress anyways. Oftentimes the only relation they have to the main story is the decision you make at the very end when deciding who is to blame in a specific case. Your choices there ultimately decide the fate of your ghost partner, but I feel like the game could have done a bit more in making the rest of the story feel more than just episodic mini-stories.
Length & Replayability
The entire thing takes about 20-25 hours to clear, so it is rather lengthy, but I can’t say I see myself replaying this one to make different choices purely because the individual cases themselves - given I already know the outcome - would just be a slog.
Graphics, Music, & Performance
Character designs are solid, the environments are detailed, the lighting is well-done, and the soundtrack is alright too. Performance-wise, I was unable to run the game natively at 4k 144fps medium-high settings on my 3080 Ti and ended up having to enable DLSS to compensate. After that though, no issues aside from the occasional funky animation bug.
Overall
I would give Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden a light recommendation. It does many things well, such as the combat, the exploration, and the narrative too, but I can’t say that any single one of these is anything more than just “good”. The combat has issues with how repetitive it can be, the narrative is hit or miss due to the episodic nature of the game loop, and the whole crafting/upgrading system just felt shallow. That said, you do get some really interesting cases, characters, and the boss fights are really cool too. I’m glad I played it, but would only recommend it on sale or in a bundle.
Banishers is basically what you would get if you took God of War and gave it a little bit of the Sherlock Holmes treatment. It’s an interesting combo that has both its pros and cons.
Combat
Overall, the combat is pretty good. Hits have weight behind them, there’s a few different weapon types to mix and match mid-fight, the movement feels fluid, dodging, parrying, and blocking are responsive, and there’s an entire skill tree with new moves and such to add even more flavor. For not being the focus of the experience, the studio did a pretty good job making the combat fun to play.
That said, it really suffers with its enemy variety. It gets kinda boring fighting the same type of ghosts over and over throughout the game, especially since the only visual difference between most of them is their color. The boss fights are cool, but there aren’t enough of them to break up the otherwise monotonous enemies.
Exploration & Level Design
Exploration is also a big part of the experience and something Banishers does well. The level design in particular is solid. You have this large map to explore complete with branching paths, plenty of side objectives, towns with people to get to know, beautiful scenery, and I am just kinda a sucker for medieval/fantasy infused aesthetics and the world here in Banishers absolutely nails that.
One thing I really was not a fan of was the whole crafting/upgrading element. It reminded me of games like A Plague Tale or even God of War, where it’s just kinda tacked on to the experience and there to give you an excuse to wander around more to find more grass, stone, and other random material to collect for future upgrades. That aspect was not really fleshed out and came across as tedious as a result.
Story
I liked the overarching plot. Two banishers - basically ghost hunters or paranormal investigators - traveling around solving cases and ultimately trying to decide the fate of Antea, your partner who herself is a ghost. It’s a great set up to tie together the rest of the game, which ultimately comes across as episodic.
That can be good or bad depending on the person. You have this goal of reaching New Eden - the town where your partner died - but must stop along the way to assist with cases that ultimately have no relation to the rest of the plot. Some of these cases are genuinely interesting, some are bad, but most are just okay. You’ll get one that dives into a couple characters and raises some great questions about topics like death, relationships, and what it takes to survive in the world, and then one that has a very predictable and boring twist with surface-level characters.
I would say for the most part, the cases are interesting, but there are quite a lot that just aren’t and you’re forced to go through them to progress anyways. Oftentimes the only relation they have to the main story is the decision you make at the very end when deciding who is to blame in a specific case. Your choices there ultimately decide the fate of your ghost partner, but I feel like the game could have done a bit more in making the rest of the story feel more than just episodic mini-stories.
Length & Replayability
The entire thing takes about 20-25 hours to clear, so it is rather lengthy, but I can’t say I see myself replaying this one to make different choices purely because the individual cases themselves - given I already know the outcome - would just be a slog.
Graphics, Music, & Performance
Character designs are solid, the environments are detailed, the lighting is well-done, and the soundtrack is alright too. Performance-wise, I was unable to run the game natively at 4k 144fps medium-high settings on my 3080 Ti and ended up having to enable DLSS to compensate. After that though, no issues aside from the occasional funky animation bug.
Overall
I would give Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden a light recommendation. It does many things well, such as the combat, the exploration, and the narrative too, but I can’t say that any single one of these is anything more than just “good”. The combat has issues with how repetitive it can be, the narrative is hit or miss due to the episodic nature of the game loop, and the whole crafting/upgrading system just felt shallow. That said, you do get some really interesting cases, characters, and the boss fights are really cool too. I’m glad I played it, but would only recommend it on sale or in a bundle.
Full video review: https://youtu.be/G4yuvzEmFVo
A story about finding love to overwrite feelings for the one you lost. UsoNatsu is a nice, short girls love visual novel that has gone oddly unnoticed.
Overview & Length
UsoNatsu is a kinetic novel. There are no choices and your only input is just advancing the lines. It’s also not too long - clocking in at somewhere between 10-15 hours, which honestly is not that bad for the type of story being told here.
Story
The story starts out slow, throwing you into these random slice of life scenes where not much happens. In a lot of visual novels like this, this kind of content can oftentimes become overbearing, but I did not really get that feeling here with UsoNatsu. The slice of life scenes are spread out well, are varied in their delivery, and don’t drag on too long. It’s genuinely fun to get to know these characters and the game does a great job advancing the overall story through these scenes.
The idea is to overwrite painful memories with happy ones, so oftentimes you’ll have these "fun" scenes and the characters may share just a bit of their past or otherwise have some sort of small development so it doesn’t feel like just slice of life filler. It’s a balancing act and UsoNatsu overall does a great job with it.
Pacing
The pacing is great until the last 20% of the game or so. Relationships changed too quickly and the entire love triangle that develops during the middle of the game just becomes cheesy at that point and I can’t say I cared too much for it. This makes the emotional beats that the finale was going for not quite land as hard as the writers probably aimed for. I mean, the ending itself is satisfying enough, it’s just everything immediately preceding it that felt like it could have been spaced out another chapter or two.
Characters
UsnoNatsu is a love drama, but it’s not overly dramatic. There is a love triangle, but it isn’t this super annoying thing. I really liked how the story felt grounded and realistic in a way. The characters actually act like humans and not some mess of anime tropes. The main character in particular, Kaoru Tachibana, has some genuinely interesting monologues that might just be the highlight of the story for me.
She’s grappling with the loss of this relationship she had with her teacher, who herself is probably my second favorite character in the story, while also managing these blossoming feelings for the second lead heroine, Shiori Minagi. Minagi has a really interesting backstory and I enjoyed getting to learn that, but I also can't deny that I felt like she came across as a bit shallow at times.
There’s also the friend character, the one that finds herself in a love triangle with the other two, and really, she was probably the least interesting of the bunch because she hardly had any time to get any real development and felt more so like she was inserted into the story to act as a driving force for what is obviously the main relationship here.
Overall though, I liked the characters. A couple of them may be lacking, but the main heroine is very well written and easily carried the experience when the others were lacking.
Flashbacks
For everything the game just did right spacing out the slice of life scenes and having some actually decent pacing, it kinda shoots itself in the foot with just how much it uses flashback scenes, even for events that happened not that long ago. It’s like yes, I remember that just happened 30 minutes ago or so, I don’t need to be reminded. That part felt like filler.
Art & Music
The art might just be the single best thing about the game. This is a visual novel with characters that have more than one outfit. They quite literally have a new one each time they go out. That kind of details seems small, but considering that most VNs hardly give you two outfits max, it’s nice to see the studio go the extra mile there. That and the models aren’t just some static thing. They are slightly animated and that was a nice touch too.
Backgrounds and the overall color choices and lighting and all of that were solid. It’s a very good looking visual novel and probably one of the best I’ve read in quite some time, at least in that department. The music too though. It’s not quite on the level that I would listen to outside of the game, but it is also not super grating or repetitive and it does its job well.
Settings
Settings-wise, the game has the basics and that’s pretty much it. Skip mode option, speed options, all the different audio sliders, and window options. That said, I do have to give credit to the fact that I think this is the first visual novel I have played that natively supports 4k resolution and even has an framerate option in the settings. The game looks great and runs well at 4k, 120 fps and I am glad that at least some devs are realizing that not all VNs need to be 720p or lower.
Overall
UsoNatsu is a short, yet sweet girls love drama that might just be the best-looking visual novel I have played in years. The art is gorgeous, the story is engaging, and the characters are fairly likable overall. It does have some issues with its finale and a couple of its characters, but I enjoyed my time with it and would recommend it to girls love fans.
A story about finding love to overwrite feelings for the one you lost. UsoNatsu is a nice, short girls love visual novel that has gone oddly unnoticed.
Overview & Length
UsoNatsu is a kinetic novel. There are no choices and your only input is just advancing the lines. It’s also not too long - clocking in at somewhere between 10-15 hours, which honestly is not that bad for the type of story being told here.
Story
The story starts out slow, throwing you into these random slice of life scenes where not much happens. In a lot of visual novels like this, this kind of content can oftentimes become overbearing, but I did not really get that feeling here with UsoNatsu. The slice of life scenes are spread out well, are varied in their delivery, and don’t drag on too long. It’s genuinely fun to get to know these characters and the game does a great job advancing the overall story through these scenes.
The idea is to overwrite painful memories with happy ones, so oftentimes you’ll have these "fun" scenes and the characters may share just a bit of their past or otherwise have some sort of small development so it doesn’t feel like just slice of life filler. It’s a balancing act and UsoNatsu overall does a great job with it.
Pacing
The pacing is great until the last 20% of the game or so. Relationships changed too quickly and the entire love triangle that develops during the middle of the game just becomes cheesy at that point and I can’t say I cared too much for it. This makes the emotional beats that the finale was going for not quite land as hard as the writers probably aimed for. I mean, the ending itself is satisfying enough, it’s just everything immediately preceding it that felt like it could have been spaced out another chapter or two.
Characters
UsnoNatsu is a love drama, but it’s not overly dramatic. There is a love triangle, but it isn’t this super annoying thing. I really liked how the story felt grounded and realistic in a way. The characters actually act like humans and not some mess of anime tropes. The main character in particular, Kaoru Tachibana, has some genuinely interesting monologues that might just be the highlight of the story for me.
She’s grappling with the loss of this relationship she had with her teacher, who herself is probably my second favorite character in the story, while also managing these blossoming feelings for the second lead heroine, Shiori Minagi. Minagi has a really interesting backstory and I enjoyed getting to learn that, but I also can't deny that I felt like she came across as a bit shallow at times.
There’s also the friend character, the one that finds herself in a love triangle with the other two, and really, she was probably the least interesting of the bunch because she hardly had any time to get any real development and felt more so like she was inserted into the story to act as a driving force for what is obviously the main relationship here.
Overall though, I liked the characters. A couple of them may be lacking, but the main heroine is very well written and easily carried the experience when the others were lacking.
Flashbacks
For everything the game just did right spacing out the slice of life scenes and having some actually decent pacing, it kinda shoots itself in the foot with just how much it uses flashback scenes, even for events that happened not that long ago. It’s like yes, I remember that just happened 30 minutes ago or so, I don’t need to be reminded. That part felt like filler.
Art & Music
The art might just be the single best thing about the game. This is a visual novel with characters that have more than one outfit. They quite literally have a new one each time they go out. That kind of details seems small, but considering that most VNs hardly give you two outfits max, it’s nice to see the studio go the extra mile there. That and the models aren’t just some static thing. They are slightly animated and that was a nice touch too.
Backgrounds and the overall color choices and lighting and all of that were solid. It’s a very good looking visual novel and probably one of the best I’ve read in quite some time, at least in that department. The music too though. It’s not quite on the level that I would listen to outside of the game, but it is also not super grating or repetitive and it does its job well.
Settings
Settings-wise, the game has the basics and that’s pretty much it. Skip mode option, speed options, all the different audio sliders, and window options. That said, I do have to give credit to the fact that I think this is the first visual novel I have played that natively supports 4k resolution and even has an framerate option in the settings. The game looks great and runs well at 4k, 120 fps and I am glad that at least some devs are realizing that not all VNs need to be 720p or lower.
Overall
UsoNatsu is a short, yet sweet girls love drama that might just be the best-looking visual novel I have played in years. The art is gorgeous, the story is engaging, and the characters are fairly likable overall. It does have some issues with its finale and a couple of its characters, but I enjoyed my time with it and would recommend it to girls love fans.
Full video review: https://youtu.be/2NU7YZFD0h0
What happens when you take the studio that made the excellent Rayman Legends and task them with tackling a new Prince of Persia game? Well, you get a pretty solid metroidvania.
Background
When this game was revealed, it was blasted by negative comments. It is a bit of a change of pace for the series, but I am a pretty big metroidvania fan and also a fan of the studio’s past works so I was looking forward to this one. And the devs pretty much delivered on that expectation. This is a full-fledged, high production value metroidvania that comes with just about everything I like about the genre plus some.
Combat
When I first started playing, I was actually a bit disappointed by the combat. You have your single attack button you just press repeatedly - and that’s pretty much it. There isn’t really much in the way of additional moves or alternate combos outside of some directional changes. This makes the early game a bit basic. As I played though, the game gradually introduced more mechanics and I kinda grew to like it.
The combat is fast-paced, challenging even on the game’s normal difficulty, and has a nice sense of weight to it. You don’t just ragdoll, you get slapped around and you actually feel it. Within a few hours, I was dashing, parrying, dodging, shooting, comboing, and all of this just felt good to do. The simplicity of its inputs became a nonissue for me.
Exploration and Movement
The Lost Crown is a proper metroidvania through and through, giving you access to large sections of the map right off the bat, but you not really fully being able to explore it all the first time you see it. You’ll have to come back at some point when you have that air dash or that teleportation move, and only then will you access that that previously inaccessible ledge leads to an entirely new area with like 20 new rooms to go through.
The map here is massive and I quite liked the variety offered by the different biomes. You get your usual desert areas and catacombs, but also a forest area, a sunken harbor, a snowy mountaintop - it’s got a lot going on and each biome has its own set of enemies too. The game in general does a great job at avoiding that sense of repetition, both through its enemy variety and the actual levels too.
The pacing is also solid. You are introduced to new mechanics right up until the end of the game and I really liked how each made movement even more fun than the last.
Content and Length
There are a ton of secrets, collectibles, and even full side quests to complete that you can find just wandering around. Some of these sidequests are pretty simple, but some are genuinely fun, like the one that introduces eight different minibosses that need their spirits freed or the one that has you repeatedly freeing this guy from getting stuck in the oddest of places, often requiring you to parkour your way into the room he’s found himself in.
I think best of all, this side content was added without making the experience feel bloated, like what is typical from Ubisoft releases. It took me around 15 hours to beat the game and that felt like a really nice length for a metroidvania like this. Not too long, not too short, and still plenty of room for me to complete all of the side content. I can easily see completionists getting a good 20-30 hours out of this one.
Story
I can’t say I really liked the story, but I also cannot deny that it wasn’t outright bad. It is just average. The characters are forgettable and while the twists can be surprising, I can’t say they had much impact on me due to not really caring for the characters. They’re just not given really any time to develop, making the story come off as basic.
Graphics and Music
On the whole, I cannot say that the game looks bad. It looks fine for what it is. I liked the stylized approach, the detailing was decent, the lighting, camera, and all of that was fine, it’s just brought down a bit by the fact that this is still obviously a game designed for the last console generation and it shows. The UI design in particular might be even worse than that, it looks like something I would get in a mobile game. Same with the music, which I liked in game, but not quite enough to listen to outside of it. Again, just fine.
Performance
No issues playing at 4k 144fps on my 3080 Ti and nothing in the way of frame stutters, freezing, or crashes. That said, I did run into several bugs. I had the camera break on me a few times, including during a boss fight where a cutscene was playing and my camera wasn’t focused on it so it kinda just looked like a mess. I also had my character get their model stuck in one pose a few times and the animations sometimes bugged out on me too. Nothing too major aside from that one cutscene one, but the game could use a bit more polish regardless.
Overall
Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown is a solid metroidvania and easily one of the best I have played in years. The combat, despite its initial simplicity, grows to become much more than that, with a full slate of abilities used both there and in exploration. The exploration is also really rewarding, with excellent level design, plenty of biome and enemy variety, and tons of secrets to find. The story and graphics may be a bit disappointing, but I had a lot of fun with this one, much more so than I thought I would going into it. An easy recommendation for metroidvania fans, regardless of your experience with Prince of Persia titles.
What happens when you take the studio that made the excellent Rayman Legends and task them with tackling a new Prince of Persia game? Well, you get a pretty solid metroidvania.
Background
When this game was revealed, it was blasted by negative comments. It is a bit of a change of pace for the series, but I am a pretty big metroidvania fan and also a fan of the studio’s past works so I was looking forward to this one. And the devs pretty much delivered on that expectation. This is a full-fledged, high production value metroidvania that comes with just about everything I like about the genre plus some.
Combat
When I first started playing, I was actually a bit disappointed by the combat. You have your single attack button you just press repeatedly - and that’s pretty much it. There isn’t really much in the way of additional moves or alternate combos outside of some directional changes. This makes the early game a bit basic. As I played though, the game gradually introduced more mechanics and I kinda grew to like it.
The combat is fast-paced, challenging even on the game’s normal difficulty, and has a nice sense of weight to it. You don’t just ragdoll, you get slapped around and you actually feel it. Within a few hours, I was dashing, parrying, dodging, shooting, comboing, and all of this just felt good to do. The simplicity of its inputs became a nonissue for me.
Exploration and Movement
The Lost Crown is a proper metroidvania through and through, giving you access to large sections of the map right off the bat, but you not really fully being able to explore it all the first time you see it. You’ll have to come back at some point when you have that air dash or that teleportation move, and only then will you access that that previously inaccessible ledge leads to an entirely new area with like 20 new rooms to go through.
The map here is massive and I quite liked the variety offered by the different biomes. You get your usual desert areas and catacombs, but also a forest area, a sunken harbor, a snowy mountaintop - it’s got a lot going on and each biome has its own set of enemies too. The game in general does a great job at avoiding that sense of repetition, both through its enemy variety and the actual levels too.
The pacing is also solid. You are introduced to new mechanics right up until the end of the game and I really liked how each made movement even more fun than the last.
Content and Length
There are a ton of secrets, collectibles, and even full side quests to complete that you can find just wandering around. Some of these sidequests are pretty simple, but some are genuinely fun, like the one that introduces eight different minibosses that need their spirits freed or the one that has you repeatedly freeing this guy from getting stuck in the oddest of places, often requiring you to parkour your way into the room he’s found himself in.
I think best of all, this side content was added without making the experience feel bloated, like what is typical from Ubisoft releases. It took me around 15 hours to beat the game and that felt like a really nice length for a metroidvania like this. Not too long, not too short, and still plenty of room for me to complete all of the side content. I can easily see completionists getting a good 20-30 hours out of this one.
Story
I can’t say I really liked the story, but I also cannot deny that it wasn’t outright bad. It is just average. The characters are forgettable and while the twists can be surprising, I can’t say they had much impact on me due to not really caring for the characters. They’re just not given really any time to develop, making the story come off as basic.
Graphics and Music
On the whole, I cannot say that the game looks bad. It looks fine for what it is. I liked the stylized approach, the detailing was decent, the lighting, camera, and all of that was fine, it’s just brought down a bit by the fact that this is still obviously a game designed for the last console generation and it shows. The UI design in particular might be even worse than that, it looks like something I would get in a mobile game. Same with the music, which I liked in game, but not quite enough to listen to outside of it. Again, just fine.
Performance
No issues playing at 4k 144fps on my 3080 Ti and nothing in the way of frame stutters, freezing, or crashes. That said, I did run into several bugs. I had the camera break on me a few times, including during a boss fight where a cutscene was playing and my camera wasn’t focused on it so it kinda just looked like a mess. I also had my character get their model stuck in one pose a few times and the animations sometimes bugged out on me too. Nothing too major aside from that one cutscene one, but the game could use a bit more polish regardless.
Overall
Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown is a solid metroidvania and easily one of the best I have played in years. The combat, despite its initial simplicity, grows to become much more than that, with a full slate of abilities used both there and in exploration. The exploration is also really rewarding, with excellent level design, plenty of biome and enemy variety, and tons of secrets to find. The story and graphics may be a bit disappointing, but I had a lot of fun with this one, much more so than I thought I would going into it. An easy recommendation for metroidvania fans, regardless of your experience with Prince of Persia titles.
2023
Quick video review: https://youtu.be/9XcWHDRiUIk
Last Train Home is a lot of things. It’s a real time tactics game, but also a survival management game. It’s an RTS, but with a full fledged historical narrative in a setting we don’t often see. Some of these it does well, some it doesn’t.
Gameplay
The game basically has two sides to it: the real time tactics of its individual missions and the larger RTS, survival resource management side of things. The former is fairly straightforward. You deploy a squad of soldiers to a given mission and complete a number of objectives to win.
It’s nothing too complicated, but it’s definitely not bad. The game gives you a variety of unit-dependent skills to use, a cover system that basically decides the victor in drawn-out battles, several different weapon types, intuitive field of view tools, and an entire slate of hotkeys to manage your gameplay. That’s all great to have, but it is also unfortunately coupled with some shoddy AI and combat that can come across as stiff. A lot of the time, you can simply rush in and wipe out enemies by having the sheer numerical advantage and if you don’t want to go that route, you can simply wait behind cover and let the AI wander towards you and just die without fighting back.
It’s a bit weird overall. The missions sometimes work and are fun, but sometimes have little issues like this that make it hard to take seriously. Still, I would say it leans more towards the fun side of things.
Similar things can be said about the RTS gameplay. You basically have this train serving as your home base and need to send squads out to gather supplies, disembark at stations to trade with local merchants, and tackle side objectives along the way to your next big destination. It’s a pretty cool system to have on top of the regular mission stuff and I quite liked being able to customize and upgrade my train, manage my units with all the different class types and abilities, and the random events that popped up occasionally were cool too.
However, this also comes with its issues. The actual act of making and sending out squads is probably my biggest problem. It’s just so unintuitive. You can’t filter by specific traits, so a lot of the time you’re stuck manually sorting through units to assign to squads and these units cannot be placed on more than one. You can’t rename squads, you can’t auto-assign at all, it’s really just a bunch of micro-managing and really brings down this aspect of the gameplay.
Story
The narrative here is genuinely interesting and a great driving force for the game. It is a bit janky in some areas - like the lack of pause between most dialogue lines - but the setting is super unique, it’s all voice acted in the original languages spoken by each country, and it's fairly fast-paced without feeling rushed, making for a pretty engaging overall experience.
Performance
The game looks great at 4k, max settings on my 3080 Ti and manages to run incredibly smooth on top of that. Over 100 fps without many dips, stutters, or other such technical issues. Maybe I am just used to games from this genre performing poorly, but I was impressed by the polish here.
Overall
So I would say Last Train Home is deserving of a light recommendation. It may have its issues, particularly with its AI and reliance on tedious micro management, but the gameplay is fun, the RTS train management side of things is super cool, and it's all tied together by an engaging narrative. All while running smoothly with great graphics on top of that. With some quality of life upgrades, I can really see this one being a great recommendation for the genre. Even in its current state though, it’s worth a look on sale at least.
Last Train Home is a lot of things. It’s a real time tactics game, but also a survival management game. It’s an RTS, but with a full fledged historical narrative in a setting we don’t often see. Some of these it does well, some it doesn’t.
Gameplay
The game basically has two sides to it: the real time tactics of its individual missions and the larger RTS, survival resource management side of things. The former is fairly straightforward. You deploy a squad of soldiers to a given mission and complete a number of objectives to win.
It’s nothing too complicated, but it’s definitely not bad. The game gives you a variety of unit-dependent skills to use, a cover system that basically decides the victor in drawn-out battles, several different weapon types, intuitive field of view tools, and an entire slate of hotkeys to manage your gameplay. That’s all great to have, but it is also unfortunately coupled with some shoddy AI and combat that can come across as stiff. A lot of the time, you can simply rush in and wipe out enemies by having the sheer numerical advantage and if you don’t want to go that route, you can simply wait behind cover and let the AI wander towards you and just die without fighting back.
It’s a bit weird overall. The missions sometimes work and are fun, but sometimes have little issues like this that make it hard to take seriously. Still, I would say it leans more towards the fun side of things.
Similar things can be said about the RTS gameplay. You basically have this train serving as your home base and need to send squads out to gather supplies, disembark at stations to trade with local merchants, and tackle side objectives along the way to your next big destination. It’s a pretty cool system to have on top of the regular mission stuff and I quite liked being able to customize and upgrade my train, manage my units with all the different class types and abilities, and the random events that popped up occasionally were cool too.
However, this also comes with its issues. The actual act of making and sending out squads is probably my biggest problem. It’s just so unintuitive. You can’t filter by specific traits, so a lot of the time you’re stuck manually sorting through units to assign to squads and these units cannot be placed on more than one. You can’t rename squads, you can’t auto-assign at all, it’s really just a bunch of micro-managing and really brings down this aspect of the gameplay.
Story
The narrative here is genuinely interesting and a great driving force for the game. It is a bit janky in some areas - like the lack of pause between most dialogue lines - but the setting is super unique, it’s all voice acted in the original languages spoken by each country, and it's fairly fast-paced without feeling rushed, making for a pretty engaging overall experience.
Performance
The game looks great at 4k, max settings on my 3080 Ti and manages to run incredibly smooth on top of that. Over 100 fps without many dips, stutters, or other such technical issues. Maybe I am just used to games from this genre performing poorly, but I was impressed by the polish here.
Overall
So I would say Last Train Home is deserving of a light recommendation. It may have its issues, particularly with its AI and reliance on tedious micro management, but the gameplay is fun, the RTS train management side of things is super cool, and it's all tied together by an engaging narrative. All while running smoothly with great graphics on top of that. With some quality of life upgrades, I can really see this one being a great recommendation for the genre. Even in its current state though, it’s worth a look on sale at least.
2023
Full video review: https://youtu.be/dpl2eJs8JgU
Amnesia has been a very hit or miss series for me and I find it often leans more towards the latter. But this one... was actually good?
Gameplay
This is an entirely different game compared to Rebirth. The game is no longer a linear, point to point experience. Rather, you are simply dropped straight into this bunker, given a slight tutorial, and then told to figure out the rest yourself. You will get circles on the map to give you a general understanding of what you need to do, but how to do that is entirely on you.
It’s brilliantly designed like this. You’ll find a room that may contain a note that gives a hint as to where something is at and it all just feels so natural. The progression is organic, there’s plenty of room for exploration, and you can complete objectives out of order too. Not that you know you are doing that at the time, of course, which is what I like about it. It took the extreme structure that the prior game had and just completely swapped it up, giving us this entire bunker to explore that is actually fun to do so.
Horror Elements
Not having a definite direction and not knowing what is out there makes the game way more effective as a horror experience. I went for almost an hour before I even saw the monster here, just terrified of all the noises I kept hearing and what I was doing that would possibly draw its attention. You learn bits and pieces from notes, but for the most part, you are on your own. I really liked this approach and it really only works here because of how freeform the gameplay is.
Randomization
You cannot just pick up a walkthrough and breeze your way through the game, because item placements and the codes to unlock doors are all randomized. This makes no two playthroughs the same, as in one you may have more fuel or maybe more bullets, but be lacking in others. I had no issue with this setup either way, but felt it was important to point out regardless.
Repetition
I was not a fan of the extremely dated save system. You get a few save points in the entire bunker and that’s it, even less if you are on a harder difficulty. Given how spread out the bunker is, you can go upwards of 15-30 minutes without being able to save and just die and lose all of that progress. Having to replay a segment over and over and dying because the monster decided to change its pattern is just tedious.
Story
I liked the approach of being mostly told by the environment and all the little notes and photos scattered around, but I really do not like the whole “cosmic horror” element that the game increasingly leans into as it reaches its finale. The last game did this too, and while I think The Bunker did it better, it just felt weird to have this real, grounded setting - a WW1 bunker - mixed with this sudden departure into fantasy that rapidly escalates in the last 30 minutes of the game.
Other Issues
I have some other minor complaints, like the funky object collision, the controls being weird on some containers, and I did have the game freeze on me once too (really annoying given the lackluster save system). Otherwise though, I can’t think of any more off the top of my head. I see some make the case that the graphics are poor, but they aren’t THAT bad.
Performance
I had no issues running the game at 4k and hovering around 120 fps at high settings on my 3080 Ti. There are plenty of settings to change too, so there’s room to experiment if you need to get it to run on lower-end hardware.
Overall
Amnesia: The Bunker takes an entirely new approach to its gameplay and is an overall massive improvement over its predecessor, Rebirth. Gone is the structure and linearity of that one and now you have this semi open-world to explore complete with organic progression, great level design, and a genuinely scary monster. It may have issues with some gameplay elements and its story, but it overall feels like a horror game again, and I am excited to see the series continue in this direction.
Amnesia has been a very hit or miss series for me and I find it often leans more towards the latter. But this one... was actually good?
Gameplay
This is an entirely different game compared to Rebirth. The game is no longer a linear, point to point experience. Rather, you are simply dropped straight into this bunker, given a slight tutorial, and then told to figure out the rest yourself. You will get circles on the map to give you a general understanding of what you need to do, but how to do that is entirely on you.
It’s brilliantly designed like this. You’ll find a room that may contain a note that gives a hint as to where something is at and it all just feels so natural. The progression is organic, there’s plenty of room for exploration, and you can complete objectives out of order too. Not that you know you are doing that at the time, of course, which is what I like about it. It took the extreme structure that the prior game had and just completely swapped it up, giving us this entire bunker to explore that is actually fun to do so.
Horror Elements
Not having a definite direction and not knowing what is out there makes the game way more effective as a horror experience. I went for almost an hour before I even saw the monster here, just terrified of all the noises I kept hearing and what I was doing that would possibly draw its attention. You learn bits and pieces from notes, but for the most part, you are on your own. I really liked this approach and it really only works here because of how freeform the gameplay is.
Randomization
You cannot just pick up a walkthrough and breeze your way through the game, because item placements and the codes to unlock doors are all randomized. This makes no two playthroughs the same, as in one you may have more fuel or maybe more bullets, but be lacking in others. I had no issue with this setup either way, but felt it was important to point out regardless.
Repetition
I was not a fan of the extremely dated save system. You get a few save points in the entire bunker and that’s it, even less if you are on a harder difficulty. Given how spread out the bunker is, you can go upwards of 15-30 minutes without being able to save and just die and lose all of that progress. Having to replay a segment over and over and dying because the monster decided to change its pattern is just tedious.
Story
I liked the approach of being mostly told by the environment and all the little notes and photos scattered around, but I really do not like the whole “cosmic horror” element that the game increasingly leans into as it reaches its finale. The last game did this too, and while I think The Bunker did it better, it just felt weird to have this real, grounded setting - a WW1 bunker - mixed with this sudden departure into fantasy that rapidly escalates in the last 30 minutes of the game.
Other Issues
I have some other minor complaints, like the funky object collision, the controls being weird on some containers, and I did have the game freeze on me once too (really annoying given the lackluster save system). Otherwise though, I can’t think of any more off the top of my head. I see some make the case that the graphics are poor, but they aren’t THAT bad.
Performance
I had no issues running the game at 4k and hovering around 120 fps at high settings on my 3080 Ti. There are plenty of settings to change too, so there’s room to experiment if you need to get it to run on lower-end hardware.
Overall
Amnesia: The Bunker takes an entirely new approach to its gameplay and is an overall massive improvement over its predecessor, Rebirth. Gone is the structure and linearity of that one and now you have this semi open-world to explore complete with organic progression, great level design, and a genuinely scary monster. It may have issues with some gameplay elements and its story, but it overall feels like a horror game again, and I am excited to see the series continue in this direction.
Full video review: https://youtu.be/UOqd-po5uP8
The original Valfaris was a fun 2D platform shooter, yet here we are four years later with a sequel in a completely different genre.
Gameplay
The game went from 2D platform run and gun shooter to a full-blown 2.5D side-scrolling shoot ‘em up. It is quite the shift and one I can definitely see turning off a lot of fans, but as someone that likes both genres - I kinda like it.
The game manages to take several of the elements that made the former good and translate them perfectly into the shmup space. The weapon variety and customization, for one. There are plenty to unlock there and each can be upgraded to become even more powerful.
The core to the shoot ‘em up gameplay is solid. It’s not like anything super complex or unique, but does the genre justice and that’s honestly more than I would expect from a complete genre shift like this. The shooting and movement is intuitive, melee is satisfying, the hitboxes are well-defined, and it just feels good to play.
Difficulty
The standard gameplay, as in, outside of bosses, is fairly straightforward and hardly ever caused trouble. The bosses, on the other hand, offered up a fair bit of challenge, especially later on. I felt like it was a good balance, but of course, you could make it even more difficult by ramping it up to the “hard” difficulty level.
Camera
The game’s camera was probably my biggest enemy. It felt like it was overall too slow for the new gameplay here. The delay between enemy spawns often felt like too much, like there weren't enough enemies. And then there are moments where you have to dodge obstacles in the environment, but the camera would sometimes get me stuck and, as a result, killed by being crushed by the environment. Maybe I am just too used to Cave shmups, but it was a bit annoying and I feel like the game could do with some additional speed.
Story
There is a story here, but it’s really just this tacked-on thing and I wouldn’t say you need to play the first game to understand what is going on here. I mean, there’s not really much to understand in the first place, which is not even a bad thing, just something to note.
Art and Music
The game’s transition to 2.5D was well-managed and I would say that the models and environments look good enough for a retro aesthetic like this, but I also cannot deny I preferred the 2D spritework of the original game. I feel like some of that detail and charm was lost here. Although I will give props to the devs, they did improve on making things more “visible” this time around. I did not struggle with seeing projectiles like I did in the first game.
The music is just as good too. Roughly on par with the first game, with nothing too standout, but nothing really bad either.
Length and Replayability
The entire experience takes roughly 2-3 hours to clear depending on how much you die, so it is less than half the length of the former game, but that’s a pretty standard length for a shoot ‘em up and I can’t say it felt like it was too short or too long an experience. The rate of new content was steady throughout and honestly quite engaging with how often you’re introduced to new enemy types and areas.
There is a new game+ mode as well as secret areas to find and extra modules to unlock, but I cannot say that there is much replayability beyond that.
Performance
I had no issues playing through the entire thing at 4k 144fps on my 3080 Ti. You get the usual settings to change - resolution, frame rate limit, and graphics quality - but this isn’t really a difficult game to run so I am not going to complain about the lack of settings here. It is fairly polished too. I had no issues with bugs or anything of the sort.
Overall
Valfaris: Mecha Therion is a fun follow-up to the original Valfaris that takes what made that one good and slaps it into an entirely new genre. The game is now a shoot ‘em up and comes with some good gameplay, level design, visuals, music, and some really solid weapon variety. That said, the camera is a bit of a pain and the game mostly plays it safe with regards to its approach to the genre, which might not even be a bad thing for some. Regardless, it’s a fun play whether you’ve played the original or not.
The original Valfaris was a fun 2D platform shooter, yet here we are four years later with a sequel in a completely different genre.
Gameplay
The game went from 2D platform run and gun shooter to a full-blown 2.5D side-scrolling shoot ‘em up. It is quite the shift and one I can definitely see turning off a lot of fans, but as someone that likes both genres - I kinda like it.
The game manages to take several of the elements that made the former good and translate them perfectly into the shmup space. The weapon variety and customization, for one. There are plenty to unlock there and each can be upgraded to become even more powerful.
The core to the shoot ‘em up gameplay is solid. It’s not like anything super complex or unique, but does the genre justice and that’s honestly more than I would expect from a complete genre shift like this. The shooting and movement is intuitive, melee is satisfying, the hitboxes are well-defined, and it just feels good to play.
Difficulty
The standard gameplay, as in, outside of bosses, is fairly straightforward and hardly ever caused trouble. The bosses, on the other hand, offered up a fair bit of challenge, especially later on. I felt like it was a good balance, but of course, you could make it even more difficult by ramping it up to the “hard” difficulty level.
Camera
The game’s camera was probably my biggest enemy. It felt like it was overall too slow for the new gameplay here. The delay between enemy spawns often felt like too much, like there weren't enough enemies. And then there are moments where you have to dodge obstacles in the environment, but the camera would sometimes get me stuck and, as a result, killed by being crushed by the environment. Maybe I am just too used to Cave shmups, but it was a bit annoying and I feel like the game could do with some additional speed.
Story
There is a story here, but it’s really just this tacked-on thing and I wouldn’t say you need to play the first game to understand what is going on here. I mean, there’s not really much to understand in the first place, which is not even a bad thing, just something to note.
Art and Music
The game’s transition to 2.5D was well-managed and I would say that the models and environments look good enough for a retro aesthetic like this, but I also cannot deny I preferred the 2D spritework of the original game. I feel like some of that detail and charm was lost here. Although I will give props to the devs, they did improve on making things more “visible” this time around. I did not struggle with seeing projectiles like I did in the first game.
The music is just as good too. Roughly on par with the first game, with nothing too standout, but nothing really bad either.
Length and Replayability
The entire experience takes roughly 2-3 hours to clear depending on how much you die, so it is less than half the length of the former game, but that’s a pretty standard length for a shoot ‘em up and I can’t say it felt like it was too short or too long an experience. The rate of new content was steady throughout and honestly quite engaging with how often you’re introduced to new enemy types and areas.
There is a new game+ mode as well as secret areas to find and extra modules to unlock, but I cannot say that there is much replayability beyond that.
Performance
I had no issues playing through the entire thing at 4k 144fps on my 3080 Ti. You get the usual settings to change - resolution, frame rate limit, and graphics quality - but this isn’t really a difficult game to run so I am not going to complain about the lack of settings here. It is fairly polished too. I had no issues with bugs or anything of the sort.
Overall
Valfaris: Mecha Therion is a fun follow-up to the original Valfaris that takes what made that one good and slaps it into an entirely new genre. The game is now a shoot ‘em up and comes with some good gameplay, level design, visuals, music, and some really solid weapon variety. That said, the camera is a bit of a pain and the game mostly plays it safe with regards to its approach to the genre, which might not even be a bad thing for some. Regardless, it’s a fun play whether you’ve played the original or not.
2023
Full video review: https://youtu.be/lq30tHcy8FQ
I play a lot of weird games for my YT channel, but I don’t think I have ever played one that has me questioning the mental state of its creator.
Gameplay
The Gray Man is basically a first-person point-and-click adventure where you play as a serial killer. Or rather, you play as his conscience. It’s kinda cool actually. You’re playing as the serial killer, but not really. You see what he is doing and can try to sway him to a different path, but you’re not always in control. It’s a very cool perspective to have in a story-based game.
Story
The story here is absolutely demented. I knew I was in for something sketchy when I opened the game and one of my first tasks was to keep this girl locked in my basement. You will witness murder, torture, and really just the entire internal conflict going on in this guy’s head. You can tell that he doesn’t really want to do some of these things, but can’t help himself and the game really likes to make think you can lead him in one direction before just snatching away that chance and subjecting you to depravity.
I know that sounds terrible and all, but it makes for a really engaging horror game. It was very interesting to see such themes tackled in this way and the constant tug and pull gives the story a nice psychological thriller feel to it.
Aesthetic
The art is actually just insane. Scribbles going everywhere, seizure-inducing cutscenes made to resemble an internal battle, memories popping in and out in mere fragments… Having such raw visuals accompany such a story is literally a perfect match and the fact that so many of these visuals are only visible for fractions of a second goes to show just how much work the creator put into the art here. It is a very cool visual direction for the type of story here and honestly might just be my favorite aesthetic in any indie game released all year.
Gameplay cont.
The actual point-and-click elements are very hit or miss. In some areas, it’s fine, serviceable enough. In others though, it’s not good. There are some sequences that utilize full 3D levels and to move around them you have to hit arrows on the sides of the screen and it’s like the most unintuitive thing ever. I frequently lost track of where I was, what direction I was supposed to be facing, and it’s just a confusing mess.
Difficulty
You will get one sequence that is simple enough to go through without needing any assistance, and then some areas where you literally have no idea what you are doing because the game oftentimes does not explain basic mechanics to you. This is very prevalent in the final sequence, which is some extremely frustrating stuff. The clunky navigation combined with the insta-death phantom that just goes around in loops makes it very difficult to complete. I must have restarted that entire level at least 20 times before I finally made it through.
Bugs and Polish
I ran into a couple softlock issues during my playthrough, which fortunately were easily solved by a simple save and reload. The game saves often enough that I never really lost too much progress there. Still, any issues, including softlocks, need to be mentioned and absolutely should be something the dev should fix. I have been seeing constant updates sent the game’s way, several per week, since its launch, so it appears the dev is already hard at work doing so.
Overall
The Gray Man is a powerful and honestly horrific visual experience that had me questioning the mental state of its creator. The story, even for how dark it is, is incredibly engaging and tackles a perspective I can’t say I’ve ever seen done in a video game before. The visuals are insane and easily some of the best I have ever seen in an indie game like this. The gameplay, well, that part isn’t really as good. It’s kinda bad, actually. So it’s a bit of a half-recommendation here. if you’re in it for the story and you like psychological horror, you’ll be set, but if you’re in it for point and click gameplay, I’d stay away.
I play a lot of weird games for my YT channel, but I don’t think I have ever played one that has me questioning the mental state of its creator.
Gameplay
The Gray Man is basically a first-person point-and-click adventure where you play as a serial killer. Or rather, you play as his conscience. It’s kinda cool actually. You’re playing as the serial killer, but not really. You see what he is doing and can try to sway him to a different path, but you’re not always in control. It’s a very cool perspective to have in a story-based game.
Story
The story here is absolutely demented. I knew I was in for something sketchy when I opened the game and one of my first tasks was to keep this girl locked in my basement. You will witness murder, torture, and really just the entire internal conflict going on in this guy’s head. You can tell that he doesn’t really want to do some of these things, but can’t help himself and the game really likes to make think you can lead him in one direction before just snatching away that chance and subjecting you to depravity.
I know that sounds terrible and all, but it makes for a really engaging horror game. It was very interesting to see such themes tackled in this way and the constant tug and pull gives the story a nice psychological thriller feel to it.
Aesthetic
The art is actually just insane. Scribbles going everywhere, seizure-inducing cutscenes made to resemble an internal battle, memories popping in and out in mere fragments… Having such raw visuals accompany such a story is literally a perfect match and the fact that so many of these visuals are only visible for fractions of a second goes to show just how much work the creator put into the art here. It is a very cool visual direction for the type of story here and honestly might just be my favorite aesthetic in any indie game released all year.
Gameplay cont.
The actual point-and-click elements are very hit or miss. In some areas, it’s fine, serviceable enough. In others though, it’s not good. There are some sequences that utilize full 3D levels and to move around them you have to hit arrows on the sides of the screen and it’s like the most unintuitive thing ever. I frequently lost track of where I was, what direction I was supposed to be facing, and it’s just a confusing mess.
Difficulty
You will get one sequence that is simple enough to go through without needing any assistance, and then some areas where you literally have no idea what you are doing because the game oftentimes does not explain basic mechanics to you. This is very prevalent in the final sequence, which is some extremely frustrating stuff. The clunky navigation combined with the insta-death phantom that just goes around in loops makes it very difficult to complete. I must have restarted that entire level at least 20 times before I finally made it through.
Bugs and Polish
I ran into a couple softlock issues during my playthrough, which fortunately were easily solved by a simple save and reload. The game saves often enough that I never really lost too much progress there. Still, any issues, including softlocks, need to be mentioned and absolutely should be something the dev should fix. I have been seeing constant updates sent the game’s way, several per week, since its launch, so it appears the dev is already hard at work doing so.
Overall
The Gray Man is a powerful and honestly horrific visual experience that had me questioning the mental state of its creator. The story, even for how dark it is, is incredibly engaging and tackles a perspective I can’t say I’ve ever seen done in a video game before. The visuals are insane and easily some of the best I have ever seen in an indie game like this. The gameplay, well, that part isn’t really as good. It’s kinda bad, actually. So it’s a bit of a half-recommendation here. if you’re in it for the story and you like psychological horror, you’ll be set, but if you’re in it for point and click gameplay, I’d stay away.
2023
Full video review: https://youtu.be/RxS6fy52eiU
KarmaZoo might just be one of the cutest games I have played all year. I mean, you can literally shoot hearts at your teammates to spread love and I can’t say I’ve played another game that quite reaches that level.
Gameplay
At its core, KarmaZoo is a game about cooperative puzzle platforming. You’ll run into situations where you need one player to unlock a door for another player to pass, or where you need one player to sing to activate a platform for another player to stand on. It’s not a really difficult formula to understand and doesn’t really get too complex, which may be an issue for some, but I feel like the devs did a great job making it just complex enough to draw in players that may not be familiar with the genre while still being engaging for those more experienced.
Levels
Levels are divided into “loops” which are kinda reminiscent of a roguelike run. The levels are handcrafted and selected from a pool of over 300 according to what characters are selected. After completing a level, players vote on a card to activate for the next, and this was a kinda fun feature in itself because you can do interesting stuff like force everyone to play the same character in the next level or one of my group’s favorites - a card that activates a saxophone to play with the background music. These were fun to play with even if they don’t always change the gameplay.
Characters
Characters range from your simple blobs, to owls that can glide, to lions that can sing in all directions, to literal flower pots that can create platforms from their flowers. There are 50 such to unlock, so there’s a lot of replayability in that regard and given that you can play with up to 10 people, I can only imagine how insane some combinations would be. That said, I was a bit disappointed to see that some of those characters had identical or very similar abilities to others instead of truly being unique.
Gameplay cont.
Playing through loops and trying out different character combinations was fun, activating the dumbest level effects was also fun, and the game even has a competitive mode called Totem that can be played online or locally and that was a ton of fun too. That mode has a bunch of different level types, like races or eating challenges and it was really cool to see how the devs could take simple concepts like that and craft a ton of levels that all feel different from each other and try new things.
Longevity
My only real concern with the game is its longevity. This is not a game that can be played solo. Like, it straight up just does not work. Trying to join a loop or creating your own spits you into a lobby with a message stating that two players are required to continue. This is not surprising, given that the gameplay would actually just be impossible to complete as a solo, but it is very important to note as once this game loses its playerbase, it will be extremely difficult to play.
Overall
I would give KarmaZoo a light recommendation. It’s a fun little co-op puzzler that is great to play if you have a group of friends ready to give it a shot. It has a ton of characters to unlock, level types to work through, and the competitive Totem mode is a lot of fun too. That said, if you do not have a group to play with, you’ll be at the mercy of the online playerbase which I honestly cannot see lasting that long, so that is definitely something to keep in mind.
KarmaZoo might just be one of the cutest games I have played all year. I mean, you can literally shoot hearts at your teammates to spread love and I can’t say I’ve played another game that quite reaches that level.
Gameplay
At its core, KarmaZoo is a game about cooperative puzzle platforming. You’ll run into situations where you need one player to unlock a door for another player to pass, or where you need one player to sing to activate a platform for another player to stand on. It’s not a really difficult formula to understand and doesn’t really get too complex, which may be an issue for some, but I feel like the devs did a great job making it just complex enough to draw in players that may not be familiar with the genre while still being engaging for those more experienced.
Levels
Levels are divided into “loops” which are kinda reminiscent of a roguelike run. The levels are handcrafted and selected from a pool of over 300 according to what characters are selected. After completing a level, players vote on a card to activate for the next, and this was a kinda fun feature in itself because you can do interesting stuff like force everyone to play the same character in the next level or one of my group’s favorites - a card that activates a saxophone to play with the background music. These were fun to play with even if they don’t always change the gameplay.
Characters
Characters range from your simple blobs, to owls that can glide, to lions that can sing in all directions, to literal flower pots that can create platforms from their flowers. There are 50 such to unlock, so there’s a lot of replayability in that regard and given that you can play with up to 10 people, I can only imagine how insane some combinations would be. That said, I was a bit disappointed to see that some of those characters had identical or very similar abilities to others instead of truly being unique.
Gameplay cont.
Playing through loops and trying out different character combinations was fun, activating the dumbest level effects was also fun, and the game even has a competitive mode called Totem that can be played online or locally and that was a ton of fun too. That mode has a bunch of different level types, like races or eating challenges and it was really cool to see how the devs could take simple concepts like that and craft a ton of levels that all feel different from each other and try new things.
Longevity
My only real concern with the game is its longevity. This is not a game that can be played solo. Like, it straight up just does not work. Trying to join a loop or creating your own spits you into a lobby with a message stating that two players are required to continue. This is not surprising, given that the gameplay would actually just be impossible to complete as a solo, but it is very important to note as once this game loses its playerbase, it will be extremely difficult to play.
Overall
I would give KarmaZoo a light recommendation. It’s a fun little co-op puzzler that is great to play if you have a group of friends ready to give it a shot. It has a ton of characters to unlock, level types to work through, and the competitive Totem mode is a lot of fun too. That said, if you do not have a group to play with, you’ll be at the mercy of the online playerbase which I honestly cannot see lasting that long, so that is definitely something to keep in mind.
Full video review: https://youtu.be/W6iV6ZsM0iw
Over 20 years since the original Alien Hominid released and we’re getting not just a port of the HD version for modern platforms, but a full-blown sequel on top of that.
Despite this one appearing as a sequel to the original game, it plays entirely different from it. We went from a level-based side-scrolling shooter to an arcade action roguelike with an emphasis on multiplayer. It’s a drastic change, but it’s not necessarily a bad one, even if it comes with some major faults.
Instead of straightforward levels, you get missions, which are a collection of randomly generated maps that you can progress in any way you want. These maps are then full of individual levels that contain randomly generated objectives, ranging from “collect intel from downed FBI agents” to “destroy five purple enemies” and even “observe this guy eat a snack”. And that’s kinda where my first complaint lies. It feels like there are maybe 10 of these objective types total and they just keep recycling over and over on maps that don’t feel all that different from one another.
This is only held up by the gameplay, which has seen numerous improvements over the original game. Mainly, the shooting feels much better, dodging is far more responsive and actually gives you iframes, and the weapon selection is far more expansive. You get a bunch of different weapon types to use, including lasers, miniguns, energy blades, shotguns, and flamethrowers just to name some. A lot of the fun was simply finding a new weapon and trying it out. That coupled with the improved movement made for some fun gameplay.
The multiplayer focus does add a bit of chaos into the mix though. Even with just two players (the game allows up to four), we still occasionally lost where we were on screen due to the sheer insanity that the gameplay can devolve into. Bullets, enemies, and aliens flying all over. It is like 10x more chaotic than the original game which can be either a good or bad thing depending on what you’re looking for. I personally found it to be very engaging, even if it was a bit much at times.
Overall
I would say Alien Hominid Invasion is worthy of a light recommendation. It's a fun evolution on the original formula and comes with vastly improved gameplay, but does suffer from its lack of mission variety and occasionally overly chaotic combat. Might not be an immediate buy, but worth a look if you can catch either on sale or if you’re just a big fan of the genre.
Over 20 years since the original Alien Hominid released and we’re getting not just a port of the HD version for modern platforms, but a full-blown sequel on top of that.
Despite this one appearing as a sequel to the original game, it plays entirely different from it. We went from a level-based side-scrolling shooter to an arcade action roguelike with an emphasis on multiplayer. It’s a drastic change, but it’s not necessarily a bad one, even if it comes with some major faults.
Instead of straightforward levels, you get missions, which are a collection of randomly generated maps that you can progress in any way you want. These maps are then full of individual levels that contain randomly generated objectives, ranging from “collect intel from downed FBI agents” to “destroy five purple enemies” and even “observe this guy eat a snack”. And that’s kinda where my first complaint lies. It feels like there are maybe 10 of these objective types total and they just keep recycling over and over on maps that don’t feel all that different from one another.
This is only held up by the gameplay, which has seen numerous improvements over the original game. Mainly, the shooting feels much better, dodging is far more responsive and actually gives you iframes, and the weapon selection is far more expansive. You get a bunch of different weapon types to use, including lasers, miniguns, energy blades, shotguns, and flamethrowers just to name some. A lot of the fun was simply finding a new weapon and trying it out. That coupled with the improved movement made for some fun gameplay.
The multiplayer focus does add a bit of chaos into the mix though. Even with just two players (the game allows up to four), we still occasionally lost where we were on screen due to the sheer insanity that the gameplay can devolve into. Bullets, enemies, and aliens flying all over. It is like 10x more chaotic than the original game which can be either a good or bad thing depending on what you’re looking for. I personally found it to be very engaging, even if it was a bit much at times.
Overall
I would say Alien Hominid Invasion is worthy of a light recommendation. It's a fun evolution on the original formula and comes with vastly improved gameplay, but does suffer from its lack of mission variety and occasionally overly chaotic combat. Might not be an immediate buy, but worth a look if you can catch either on sale or if you’re just a big fan of the genre.
2007
Full video review: https://youtu.be/W6iV6ZsM0iw
Over 20 years since the original Alien Hominid released and it is just now finding it's way to Steam.
It is basically a simple port of the original HD remaster from Xbox Live Arcade, but with just a few tweaks for modern hardware. You get higher resolution and framerate support, but the game is practically the same thing. Same fun levels, same crazy boss designs, same run and gun style gameplay, same everything. This includes the difficulty, which I won’t deny, can be pretty unfair at times. This was back in the day when enemies and bullets spawning on top of you and having extremely limited lives was common.
I had to reset at least a dozen times just to clear the game once, which isn’t even that long at 2 hours, but goes to show just how difficult a game this is. Some of the boss designs are also just outright bad, with annoying gimmicky moves or straight up bugs in some areas. I was also not a fan of the complete lack of iframes when dodge rolling and the mere split second you get when respawning. That alone led to so many deaths simply because I would spawn on top of an enemy and just die.
Still, I can’t deny there is a bit of a nostalgic feeling to it. If you grew up playing games on Newgrounds, that same energy can be found here and it is perfectly preserved for modern platforms. It may not be for everyone, but I had a good time playing through it.
Overall
I would say Alien Hominid HD is worthy of a light recommendation. It is a fun throwback to the Newgrounds days, with straightforward run and gun style gameplay complete with crazy boss designs, but also insane and often unfair difficulty. Might not be an immediate buy, but worth a look if you can catch either on sale or if you’re just a big fan of the genre.
Over 20 years since the original Alien Hominid released and it is just now finding it's way to Steam.
It is basically a simple port of the original HD remaster from Xbox Live Arcade, but with just a few tweaks for modern hardware. You get higher resolution and framerate support, but the game is practically the same thing. Same fun levels, same crazy boss designs, same run and gun style gameplay, same everything. This includes the difficulty, which I won’t deny, can be pretty unfair at times. This was back in the day when enemies and bullets spawning on top of you and having extremely limited lives was common.
I had to reset at least a dozen times just to clear the game once, which isn’t even that long at 2 hours, but goes to show just how difficult a game this is. Some of the boss designs are also just outright bad, with annoying gimmicky moves or straight up bugs in some areas. I was also not a fan of the complete lack of iframes when dodge rolling and the mere split second you get when respawning. That alone led to so many deaths simply because I would spawn on top of an enemy and just die.
Still, I can’t deny there is a bit of a nostalgic feeling to it. If you grew up playing games on Newgrounds, that same energy can be found here and it is perfectly preserved for modern platforms. It may not be for everyone, but I had a good time playing through it.
Overall
I would say Alien Hominid HD is worthy of a light recommendation. It is a fun throwback to the Newgrounds days, with straightforward run and gun style gameplay complete with crazy boss designs, but also insane and often unfair difficulty. Might not be an immediate buy, but worth a look if you can catch either on sale or if you’re just a big fan of the genre.
2023
Full video version: https://youtu.be/az-aW-iwSlY
Cities: Skylines 2 should not be released. It pains me to say as a big fan of the original game, but the sequel here is simply not in an acceptable state.
So basically, Paradox sent me a copy of the game - thanks to the for that by the way - and given how many hours I have poured into the original, I went into this one super excited. I booted up the game and was immediately met by a 5 fps main menu. Not 60, not 30, but just 5. I figured, okay, I’ll change some settings around to see what I can get to work. The devs sent me their recommended graphics settings, so I swapped to those and managed to get the main menu to roughly 70 fps.
This was great, until I hopped into the actual game and it wasn’t. After just an hour of gameplay, that 70 fps deteriorated all the way down to 30. After two hours, it was down to 15-20 with my population not even hitting 10,000 yet. I was playing at 1440p on a mix of mostly low and some medium settings. My system specs are above the recommended requirements, even after they were raised a few weeks ago (which was already a massive red flag to begin with).
The performance is just abysmal. I can see maybe 30 fps being fine, but the fact that the game frequently dips to half of that on almost the lowest settings is just unacceptable. It makes the experience feel slow, choppy, and frustrating. It’s not even like the game itself is bad. From what I have played, it has been a solid upgrade to what I loved about the first game. It’s just that those upgrades are marred by some of the worst performance I have seen from a PC release all year.
I’ve seen others concerned with the change of modding platforms - from Steam Workshop to Paradox’s own mod platform - but honestly, that doesn’t bother me so much. The performance is all that really matters at this point and I cannot in good faith give the game a proper review until it is optimized. That might take months. Maybe longer.
Overall
I cannot recommend Cities: Skylines 2. It’s almost unplayable in its current state and the fact that it is being released anyways is really just sad. The publisher knows the game isn’t ready and that really just rubs me the wrong way. Maybe good for business, but bad for the consumer and that is ultimately who I always will side with.
Cities: Skylines 2 should not be released. It pains me to say as a big fan of the original game, but the sequel here is simply not in an acceptable state.
So basically, Paradox sent me a copy of the game - thanks to the for that by the way - and given how many hours I have poured into the original, I went into this one super excited. I booted up the game and was immediately met by a 5 fps main menu. Not 60, not 30, but just 5. I figured, okay, I’ll change some settings around to see what I can get to work. The devs sent me their recommended graphics settings, so I swapped to those and managed to get the main menu to roughly 70 fps.
This was great, until I hopped into the actual game and it wasn’t. After just an hour of gameplay, that 70 fps deteriorated all the way down to 30. After two hours, it was down to 15-20 with my population not even hitting 10,000 yet. I was playing at 1440p on a mix of mostly low and some medium settings. My system specs are above the recommended requirements, even after they were raised a few weeks ago (which was already a massive red flag to begin with).
The performance is just abysmal. I can see maybe 30 fps being fine, but the fact that the game frequently dips to half of that on almost the lowest settings is just unacceptable. It makes the experience feel slow, choppy, and frustrating. It’s not even like the game itself is bad. From what I have played, it has been a solid upgrade to what I loved about the first game. It’s just that those upgrades are marred by some of the worst performance I have seen from a PC release all year.
I’ve seen others concerned with the change of modding platforms - from Steam Workshop to Paradox’s own mod platform - but honestly, that doesn’t bother me so much. The performance is all that really matters at this point and I cannot in good faith give the game a proper review until it is optimized. That might take months. Maybe longer.
Overall
I cannot recommend Cities: Skylines 2. It’s almost unplayable in its current state and the fact that it is being released anyways is really just sad. The publisher knows the game isn’t ready and that really just rubs me the wrong way. Maybe good for business, but bad for the consumer and that is ultimately who I always will side with.
2023
Full video review: https://youtu.be/vkGv0GEtTtQ
Humanity has been wiped out and now androids are working to restore it. The only problem? They don’t understand what humanity truly is.
Gameplay & Combat
CRYMACHINA is another one of those visual novels disguised as an action JRPG. While there is gameplay, about 75% of your time is going to be spent reading or listening through character dialogues and cutscenes. I personally don’t have a problem with this as a big VN fan, but this should be made clear upfront for those expecting a full-blown action JRPG.
The combat is real-time and mostly revolves around spamming the same few inputs as it’s effectively a two button hack and slash without any fancy combo strings. The entire game I found myself just using the same combo over and over. Light attack string, heavy attack to raise them into the air, light string, heavy attack to bring them to the ground, light string, and then a finishing move to end the combo.
That’s literally all I did for the majority of the game’s bosses. There are some where I needed to dodge more often, but most I was able to simply stun lock and repeat this combo over and over until the fight was over. It is not a difficult game by any means and there is no “hard” difficulty to set it to.
It’s weird though, because while I was able to do that to most of the bosses, when I did get hit it was usually for like half of my HP. And a lot of the bosses straight up can just one shot you. So it does hurt if any enemy actually lands a hit, it’s just that hardly ever happened in my case. The difficulty balance is just all sorts of weird here.
The core to the combat is also a bit weird. There’s a decent enough amount of feedback when I actually hit an enemy, but when I am the one being hit, it is oftentimes hard to even notice. I’ll be fighting a boss and suddenly have half of my HP and I’m like, “when did I even get hit?”.
The combat at least does good in some areas - mainly the different weapon types and the dodging and countering feels good too, it’s just brought down by how simple and monotonous it is.
Level Design
The level design is just outright terrible, lazy even. The entire game is literally hallways and platforms in a cyberspace-like environment. There is virtually no exploration outside of maybe an additional hallway to a chest, there’s no complex structures, just hallways, pillars, walls, emptiness really.
It’s so bad that some levels are literally just a straight path to the boss room. You walk forward, kill a few random enemies that spawn, and keep walking forward and suddenly you’re at the boss room which is just a slightly wider hallway. It took maybe 1 minute to reach that boss room, so what exactly is the point of even having the stuff prior to it? It’s like the game is trying to maintain this illusion of substance when there really isn’t any.
Game Loop
The entire experience is mission-based. You enter a level, run to the boss room, kill the boss, and are sent back to this hub area - all menu-based by the way - where you get a story cutscene, mandatory character dialogue scenes, the chance to edit your loadout, and then you need to head back in to the next mission. The loop is very defined. Nothing really breaks this formula and really, it’s kinda dull as a result.
Story
The story is really the only thing propping this game up. I’ve played other games from this developer and they can be very hit or miss, so I was a bit surprised here. We get a full-blown post-apocalyptic story that deals with the deeper meaning behind relationships and even broad topics like humanity without feeling like it was written by an edgy middle schooler like Monark was. I’m not going to make the case that it’s some super involved, multi-level story, but for JRPG standards, it’s fairly interesting.
Maybe a lot of that is due to the setting - basically a futuristic world where humanity was wiped out by a world war and androids are attempting to restore humanity, but struggle to understand what exactly being a “real human” entails. I am a bit of a sci-fi nerd, so that setup definitely pulled me in.
The real winner here though is the pacing. CRYMACHINA is faster-paced, but not too fast. There are slower moments of character building, but they come in bite-sized pieces and don’t overstay their welcome. The twists and turns of the main story are weaved in with these character building moments and it’s actually quite a good combo. The studio did a great job balancing the pacing there.
Length & Replayability
The game also isn’t too drawn out. It can be completed in just 10 hours if you’re doing just the main content. There are side missions, but the game is so easy that I didn’t even touch those until the end, there was just no need to. There are some additional, optional dialogue sequences too. Overall, you can probably squeeze maybe 20 hours if you do all of that content, maybe even 30 if you want to go the completionist route and kill all of the optional bosses and such.
That said, it’s not too replayable and I can’t see myself returning to the game in the future. Not that that matters to me personally, but I know others value that aspect so it’s important to note.
Graphics & Music
I guess the character designs are cool and the music isn’t that bad either, but the graphics, the cutscenes, and really just the overall aesthetic are not really that good, barebones even. This is obviously a low budget JRPG and it shows in pretty much every area.
Performance
I played through the entire thing at 4k max settings hovering around 144 fps on my RTX 3080 Ti. But again, I can’t say that was surprising given that this looks like something from two console generations ago. There’s a decent amount of settings to change too, so there is room to play around with if you’re on lower end hardware.
Overall
CRYMACHINA is a decent story wrapped up in some truly boring gameplay and a cheap overall aesthetic. The combat is monotonous, the difficulty simply isn’t there, and the level design is just outright awful. This is saved a good bit by the story, with its cool setting and solid pacing, but unfortunately, that is coupled with the rest of the game and it’s honestly just not worth it, at least at full price. This is a budget JRPG with a premium price tag and I would 100% recommend waiting for a significant drop in that price before giving it a look.
Humanity has been wiped out and now androids are working to restore it. The only problem? They don’t understand what humanity truly is.
Gameplay & Combat
CRYMACHINA is another one of those visual novels disguised as an action JRPG. While there is gameplay, about 75% of your time is going to be spent reading or listening through character dialogues and cutscenes. I personally don’t have a problem with this as a big VN fan, but this should be made clear upfront for those expecting a full-blown action JRPG.
The combat is real-time and mostly revolves around spamming the same few inputs as it’s effectively a two button hack and slash without any fancy combo strings. The entire game I found myself just using the same combo over and over. Light attack string, heavy attack to raise them into the air, light string, heavy attack to bring them to the ground, light string, and then a finishing move to end the combo.
That’s literally all I did for the majority of the game’s bosses. There are some where I needed to dodge more often, but most I was able to simply stun lock and repeat this combo over and over until the fight was over. It is not a difficult game by any means and there is no “hard” difficulty to set it to.
It’s weird though, because while I was able to do that to most of the bosses, when I did get hit it was usually for like half of my HP. And a lot of the bosses straight up can just one shot you. So it does hurt if any enemy actually lands a hit, it’s just that hardly ever happened in my case. The difficulty balance is just all sorts of weird here.
The core to the combat is also a bit weird. There’s a decent enough amount of feedback when I actually hit an enemy, but when I am the one being hit, it is oftentimes hard to even notice. I’ll be fighting a boss and suddenly have half of my HP and I’m like, “when did I even get hit?”.
The combat at least does good in some areas - mainly the different weapon types and the dodging and countering feels good too, it’s just brought down by how simple and monotonous it is.
Level Design
The level design is just outright terrible, lazy even. The entire game is literally hallways and platforms in a cyberspace-like environment. There is virtually no exploration outside of maybe an additional hallway to a chest, there’s no complex structures, just hallways, pillars, walls, emptiness really.
It’s so bad that some levels are literally just a straight path to the boss room. You walk forward, kill a few random enemies that spawn, and keep walking forward and suddenly you’re at the boss room which is just a slightly wider hallway. It took maybe 1 minute to reach that boss room, so what exactly is the point of even having the stuff prior to it? It’s like the game is trying to maintain this illusion of substance when there really isn’t any.
Game Loop
The entire experience is mission-based. You enter a level, run to the boss room, kill the boss, and are sent back to this hub area - all menu-based by the way - where you get a story cutscene, mandatory character dialogue scenes, the chance to edit your loadout, and then you need to head back in to the next mission. The loop is very defined. Nothing really breaks this formula and really, it’s kinda dull as a result.
Story
The story is really the only thing propping this game up. I’ve played other games from this developer and they can be very hit or miss, so I was a bit surprised here. We get a full-blown post-apocalyptic story that deals with the deeper meaning behind relationships and even broad topics like humanity without feeling like it was written by an edgy middle schooler like Monark was. I’m not going to make the case that it’s some super involved, multi-level story, but for JRPG standards, it’s fairly interesting.
Maybe a lot of that is due to the setting - basically a futuristic world where humanity was wiped out by a world war and androids are attempting to restore humanity, but struggle to understand what exactly being a “real human” entails. I am a bit of a sci-fi nerd, so that setup definitely pulled me in.
The real winner here though is the pacing. CRYMACHINA is faster-paced, but not too fast. There are slower moments of character building, but they come in bite-sized pieces and don’t overstay their welcome. The twists and turns of the main story are weaved in with these character building moments and it’s actually quite a good combo. The studio did a great job balancing the pacing there.
Length & Replayability
The game also isn’t too drawn out. It can be completed in just 10 hours if you’re doing just the main content. There are side missions, but the game is so easy that I didn’t even touch those until the end, there was just no need to. There are some additional, optional dialogue sequences too. Overall, you can probably squeeze maybe 20 hours if you do all of that content, maybe even 30 if you want to go the completionist route and kill all of the optional bosses and such.
That said, it’s not too replayable and I can’t see myself returning to the game in the future. Not that that matters to me personally, but I know others value that aspect so it’s important to note.
Graphics & Music
I guess the character designs are cool and the music isn’t that bad either, but the graphics, the cutscenes, and really just the overall aesthetic are not really that good, barebones even. This is obviously a low budget JRPG and it shows in pretty much every area.
Performance
I played through the entire thing at 4k max settings hovering around 144 fps on my RTX 3080 Ti. But again, I can’t say that was surprising given that this looks like something from two console generations ago. There’s a decent amount of settings to change too, so there is room to play around with if you’re on lower end hardware.
Overall
CRYMACHINA is a decent story wrapped up in some truly boring gameplay and a cheap overall aesthetic. The combat is monotonous, the difficulty simply isn’t there, and the level design is just outright awful. This is saved a good bit by the story, with its cool setting and solid pacing, but unfortunately, that is coupled with the rest of the game and it’s honestly just not worth it, at least at full price. This is a budget JRPG with a premium price tag and I would 100% recommend waiting for a significant drop in that price before giving it a look.