i hate this game so much, i have beat it two times and I will beat it again. i hate it.
i hate it
its terrible, its absolutely fucked.
i will continue playing it

I hate shadow tower with every inch of my body.

A fascinating Zelda-like/shmup game that, despite being really fun, struggles to have as much content as it wants to.

On its surface, a Zelda-like with shmup dungeons is a very interesting idea, and it is a fun time: the game features a pretty sizable overworld with tons of weapons and some upgrades, but it plays its hand far too early.

The real strength of this game is ease of play. Despite being an NES game, it's got a really good map, and its translation is very solid. As far as I can tell there's no penalty for death, and enemies LOVE to drop health for you (even bosses often shoot destroyable projectiles that can drop items for you). It does feel like a game from further into the future with how it prioritizes fun over weird insurmountable challenge that most NES games thrived on.

However, even if it's quite short, I feel like it can't offer you enougg, as it eventually becomes really formulaic. You go to a new area, find two corridors (double-digit and single-digit ones), where the latter has some sort of lock which you open thanks to the clue you receive somewhere nearby. Single-digit "corridors" are usually tougher but provide progression keys, while double-digits will usually contain power-ups.

The unfortunate part is that by mid-game you'll pretty much see everything the game has to offer. You'll get all the weapons (which, granted, you can upgrade by finding more copies) and will see most of the bosses. If it had 2-3 more zones I doubt I would've finished it, as by the end I was really getting bored: overworld became linear, started featuring enemies that were way too tanky, and rewards would usually contain consumables.

Still, it's a fun game to play for a few evenings, but I wish it was more varied as it loses its charm quite quickly.

I just beat all three of the Max Payne games over the course of a couple weeks, so I feel prepared to evaluate all three of them as individual entities, while also seeing how each may falter compared to a hypothetical "perfect" Max Payne game.

Max Payne 1 gets the whole thing started off with a bang, with a pretty easy, cut and dry motivator for much of the series - your wife and child are murdered by home invaders. Using this fuel, Max descends into a world of scum, villainy and other such shenanigans. By virtue of the games presentation and what the story is ultimately about, you would think that this game would be extremely self-serious, but there's a element of irreverence that makes you go "oh yeah this game is kind of ridiculous." Instead of undermining the tone, however, this makes it charming. The camp is a cherry on top so that you don't think remedy has a stick up its ass.

The gameplay here is great, although I do raise an eyebrow when people say this is the best the series got. Sure, the shootdodge is more fun here than in the others, but there are a few elements the others cleaned up. There are some enemies that are ridiculous bullet sponges (looking at you Frankie, dumped multiple smg clips into his head and I still died), and the amount of enemies that would essentially appear out of thin air and instant kill you was frustrating to say the least.

Don't have this discourage you from playing the game though, as there is so much to love with the package provided.

A fun, charming, and cosy adventure with a beautiful storybook aesthetic.
The game has a fairly unique control scheme where all Cereza's actions are mapped to the left side of the controller and all of Cheshire's actions are handled by the right side. It's something I found really fun, controlling two characters at the same time, solving puzzles and keeping Cereza safe while Cheshire handled combat. I can appreciate that keeping track of and controlling two characters at the same time can be a difficult thing to do but with this being on Switch, you could do a co-operative playthrough with each player using one joy-con to make things more manageable if the controls are something you're struggling with.

The adventure itself is very fun, like a mix of Zelda and Metroid in a way, where you explore this forest and gain new abilities to access areas you couldn't reach before. Each ability allows new puzzles to be solved whether it's pulling plants out the way or bouncing on giant mushrooms. I wouldn't say it's challenging, more cosy, something you can relax with and enjoy as you figure things out.

Combat is simple compared to the main series. You can still dodge and attack, but the focus is more on figuring out how to expose the enemies weak spots rather than flashy combos. There's some Bayonetta/Platinum esque action towards the end with some bosses but otherwise the focus here is more on being a charming adventure than high octane action.

Overall I really enjoyed this one a lot. I love that the team were allowed to experiment and make something unique. You can tell they put a lot of love into this and wanted to explore a different aspect of the Bayonetta world and that's something I can respect and appreciate a lot