More of a barebones stardew in terms of lore/story, just simply focused on gathering resources, upgrading equipment/structures and exploring as well as some puzzles thrown in.

It's highly addictive, it ramps up quite quickly and gets fairly chaotic. Definitely not the calm approach of something like stardew where you're waiting to do stuff in different seasons or at different times in the day/night cycle.

There's not really an ending to this game but I mean once you've completed all npc tasks, all the puzzles, gotten all the seals, I'd call that done. You can play on just to keep upgrading weapons/tools, build even more structures and increase your resource gathering and building rate but I only find that fun when I've got something to work towards (like unlocking more lands or complete another task etc...). Once you've collected all the seals etc, nothing happens, and so I was kind of left disappointed when ending this game even though I thoroughly enjoyed playing it. Just something special to show that you've completed everything rather than just another reward would have been appreciated.

Even finishing the museum, you spend so long completing it and you get nothing special for doing it lol.

The game also has performance issues that need addressing. If you've got a high refresh rate monitor, make sure you cap your framerate to 60fps otherwise the framerate seems to tank into the 30s. For some reason it doesn't like that the framerate can go over 60fps. Once capped it will stay at a solid 60fps. However the bigger issue is the gradual slow down of this game as you play. By the end, I would see a black screen for a few seconds going in and out of menus. This is on a high end gaming pc.

My friend is experiencing this slow down just a few hours in on the Nintendo Switch, which means I doubt he may even be able to finish this game due to the poor performance.

It's a shame. Visually it looks amazing and the soundtrack is great. Combat also felt tight and satisfying.

But once you look past that, it's pretty boring and just feels the same all the way through. Even though the combat felt good, I didn't feel like I had enough variety in weapons and customization to keep it feeling fresh. The sheer amount of backtracking in the missions made them feel more like a chore. It doesn't help that the maps are just so damn big. Especially in hub areas like The Warrens etc.. (i.e. where the elevators are). The length between the elevators just wore me down after awhile. You need to heavily rely on the elevators and taxis to get around, which is essentially a loading screen each time you use them and this can get annoying.

I also experienced frequent issues, such as enemies not appearing after a cut scene, one cut scene even went black and stayed that way even though the sound was still going. You frequently get stuck in the terrain and can't move. I even had tutorial prompts (like when you first go to the weapons upgrade guy) just randomly pop up during gameplay.

All style and not much substance is a pretty succinct way to describe it. I kind of enjoyed it but it did mostly feel like a chore. If you like mind numbing amounts of running back and forth over the same areas again and again this one is for you.

It has it's charm, certainly a beautiful world visually. But it's not polished.

You're constantly fighting the terrain (felt like I was playing Death Stranding at times) which sometimes could work in your favor as I found you could sometimes scale some walls and get to the next area without going the intended way. I did also manage to get to one area (the intended way) where I had no way to recharge the spirit, so had to reload to my last save.

Probably the thing that made it less enjoyable for me was how it didn't seem to respect your time. The biggest offender is recharging the spirit (which is a thing you're constantly doing). You can't just activate a flower and continue, you had to activate it then stand there while it opened and have the spirit recharge you. Key sections where the fox would become sick or hurt would slow the fox right down to a crawl while still making you walk massive distances like that. Falling into the water meant slowly dog paddling your way out and then watching the animation of the fox shaking before you could continue. Key scenic sections where you're just running forward, I get that I'm meant to be taking in the music and the visuals in those parts but I'm just holding forward in those parts and they just go on for a bit too long imo.

Last criticism would be that I found it a bit too directionless in parts.

Having said that, there were many moments and aspects that I also enjoyed. For a short game it was an ok experience.

Remember Strongbad? This is who the 'Game' reminded me of and the humour was a little bit like that too. This was much better than I was expecting having not played the previous game. The puzzles forced me to think (literally) outside of the box and the fun commentary made it so engaging. The story went deeper than I was expecting and the soundtrack was surprisingly good (when I heard GiGi's song I immediately had to pause the game to look it up and listen again). Felt like it was just the right length too.

Do yourself a favour and turn off Camera Wobble immediately to save yourself from motion sickness. Having only played the first 3 Resident Evil games, this was quite a different experience for me. It took me a bit to get into it but the more I played the more I enjoyed it that by the end I felt quite immersed in the story and gameplay. At just 9h 55m it felt like just the right length and the difficulty on standard is fairly casual but not so much that I ever felt bored with it. All in all a solid title in the series. Even though there's a recap of 7 which probably is enough to understand the continuation of the story, I feel I want to go play 7 now and would recommend doing so before playing village.

I would have given this 5 stars if it wasn't for the bullshit weeb story and characters. Luckily the story part isn't what you're playing it for and they fortunately allow you to skip through all the story scenes (and thank god because there's a lot of it).

The actual meat of the game, the platform speedrunning is amazingly well done. It feels really good to control, the levels are fun and they keep throwing new stuff at you to keep you interested right up till the end of the game. I don't mind the flat cartoon style graphics, it also has this vertical scanline effect over the top which gives it a sort of retro feel. The best thing about the graphics though is that it doesn't get in the way, easy to run on even moderate hardware and very smooth frame pacing which is what every good speedrunner game needs.

The music isn't my style, some fast paced techno rave shit that at times feels like an assault on the ears, but I guess it gets you pumped for the fast paced gameplay.

Another thing I really liked though were the sidequest levels, they gave you something a little bit different when you wanted a break from the main missions.

Visuals and controls are good, gameplay is very samey and drags out a bit too long. You're trying to build a rift to get back to earth which requires a lot of various resources. Resources are unlocked on other planets through a series of missions. The missions are all very much the same for each major resource you need.

The events that spawn like nearby nests or large enemies only really serve as an annoyance, they basically nag you until you go deal with it.

The game also has a few bugs, including a couple which were basically game breaking. One was an issue with power generation, I had an array of different power production set up (renewable, gas, magma, nuclear etc...) and yet I had no power generation. The only way to fix it was to open the console and type debug_recreate_buildings which fixes it. The other issue was starting up the rift sequence (literally the last thing you need to do to end the game). Had to again run that console command.

Ignoring those bugs it's an ok game, but largely forgettable.

Easily one of my favourites from this year. It's very relaxed and casual. No enemies or race against the clock. The entire emphasis is on exploration and the level design packs so much into small rooms with so much creativity that you'll want to explore every nook and cranny.

You're never really interrupted with lengthy dialog (unless you choose to interact with an npc) or the game explaining mechanics. It also doesn't waste your time, you can carry along multiple items to complete multiple subtasks at once, you're given a way to traverse faster right off the bat and the spider webs let you zip across the room so you never feel like backtracking or getting to a certain location is a chore.

The artwork is charming and crisp. The bugs you encounter in each room have a ton of personality. The controls felt perfect. I never once felt the game, a mechanic or controls were fighting against me.

This was a joy to play from start to finish.

The concept of this is great. Each level being a mini-world, many of which are like little rubicks cubes that look small and simple of the surface but contain lots of hidden rooms and passages that you discover by manipulating world elements.

With over 70 levels broken up into 3 episodes and a bonus episode, it was surprising how many offered it's own unique gameplay with unique mechanics. They managed to keep the creativity going right till the end except for the bonus levels which were basically previous levels with a twist.

There's probably only 2 things I'd nitpick and that's no restart option (have to leave then re-enter the level to restart) and some levels built in a way that don't allow you to backtrack if you missed something.

I managed to complete all but the last 4 bonus levels, which required me to 100% the 3 episodes.