didn't expect to enjoy this as much as i did - even as a fan on the previous 2 games. i know that the left-turns this takes in terms of story, setting and tone had put many people off when it came out.
one of my expectations was that it would all be in service of its aesthetic but to be honest there's so much more care gone into this than that. which isn't to say that the aesthetic isn't rad - the nauseous Tony Scott/music video style has aged really well. in the ever-raging debate about games narratives, this isn't one that WANTS to be a movie so much as it co-opts the language and look of specific movies to tell quite a game-y story.
where the other 2 games, for all their virtues, were a bit of a jumble of influences, there is a coherent, singular vision driving this. i don't think it's against the spirit of the 'noir' tone of the last two games at all - i think that contrasting Max's cynicism with the sun-soaked, drug-fuelled debauchery of Brazil is a really good way of showing how the world has changed and become even more corrupt around him.
shooting mechanics are tight (if a little difficult with a controller) - the 'soft lock' option is a good compromise for some of those genuinely tooth-grinding set pieces toward the end.
don't know what else to say, enjoyed this much more than i expected.

really neat game with a unique soundtrack and intricately thought out setting, complemented by a set of systems that reinforce the 'tabletop'-lite experience. it's essentially like playing an indie tabletop rpg but much of the heavy lifting is done behind closed doors, so you're not really bothered by the technicalities of running a campaign. it makes this quite a sleek, streamlined experience that sings when it gets really stuck into its setting.
there are a couple of quite significant drawbacks for me. firstly, (at least right now) playing on switch was marred by technical and interface issues that made navigating the game occasionally frustrating. there was at least one total screen-lock during a tutorial and other times i wasn't able to perform tasks my character technically should have been able to do but the game was a bit bonked. the interface is cool when it works, but there are at least a couple of locations that were incredibly difficult to click on using a controller, which meant having to memorise button inputs when moving between locations on the world map in order to go certain places, which took a lot of trial and error and was really frustrating, especially given just implementing a pointer would eradicate this issue completely.
another hang-up i had was with some of the writing. while the stories themselves are really great - just as compelling as the developer's last game, In Other Waters, but the prose can often go on for much longer than seems natural. i got the impression that the game was a lot more in love with its use of language, and scenes will often go on for a paragraph or two longer than they really need to and those paragraphs will typically be written quite flowery, which i felt undercut the overall experience.
none of this is to say that i didn't like playing this game, i actually thought that it was pretty good. i'm really looking forward to seeing how this system can be implemented with other stories in the future and i hope that the next game is as refined in its prose as the gameplay it's built on.

Really disappointed to say that I haven't finished this game (got it as a PS Plus perk whenever ago) and probably won't. It breaks my heart because I LOVE the original and was looking forward to giving this a crack but it's just not my cup of tea and I'm happy enough saying it.
The environments and music, it's worth pointing out, are BEAUTIFUL. The orchestrated score is absolutely fantastic and got me quite emotional in the first chapter of the game. Anyone who enjoys detail in game worlds would get a kick out of exploring the environments here to, a lot of people have clearly gone to a lot of trouble to make the world as meticulous as possible.
That's about as much good as I can say about it I think. The game expands the story content from the original to flesh out the characters (most notably with Jessie and the other members of AVALANCHE from what I'd played) but, honestly, I wasn't really that bothered about them and frankly found a lot of the cutscenes quite creaky and awkward.
I wasn't a huge fan of the battle system either, it was absolutely a decent choice to change the battle system up from the original because I don't think a turn-based battle system would really work with a game that looks like this and, initially, it plays well, but I felt like the game was either trivially easy or irritatingly difficult on normal difficulty. Every fight either had me mindlessly mashing the attack button or fighting the same enemy for a silly long time trying to understand the ins-and-outs of a battle system the game doesn't really explain very well. The scorpion boss in particular (in the first hour of the game) is ludicrously difficult for the boss in the prologue of a game and was incredibly frustrating to fight as I didn't understand how fighting worked properly yet.
I also think it's a shame that so much care went into the world given that it's made almost entirely of straight lines and tunnels. The original had relatively tiny spaces but felt huge to run around in where being restricted to the same little pathways and avenues just makes this game feel claustrophobic. It's sad because Midgar is such a rich setting and I wish I could have persevered to the later chapters of the game (played up to Chapter 5 before I put this down) to see areas like the church or the Honeybee Inn but I just can't see myself enjoying this as it is.

Not a Hero is Not Great - picked it up in an Indie World sale (along with the studio's Olli Olli double pack for Switch) and don't really regret the purchase given it was only £2ish but damn this is an obnoxious game. Not really funny at all, at least quite racist and abrasively violent in the same way that the Kick-Ass films were "comedy" violent but leaves sort of a bad aftertaste. I felt like this was aiming for Hotline Miami-ish ultraviolent score-attack heights but it's nowhere near as fun, snappy or smart as those games are. I played most the game as the British guy with the slide & trip mechanic and even then movement felt a little sluggish.

A really good visual novel with great character design, music and the snappiest writing. Despite some silly, obtuse adventure game solutions, the cases are well written, compelling and fun to piece together. I wish traversal was more fun or at least more interesting to look at as in a couple of the later cases it became a bit of a chore selecting ‘Move’ from a menu and a text box to go anywhere, especially as the environments get bigger and more complicated. I’d like this game a lot more if not for the last case, which was added to the DS release and feels very tacked-on. The writing is still good in it but it’s needlessly bloated and could have done with the same care that clearly went into putting the other cases together.

Played this through in less than a day - appreciated the brevity; there isn't a mechanic that outstays its welcome. I really got into & involved in the loop of surveilling these squirrels across various spots in the forest. Keeping track of them and refining your camera placement is really fun.
Has to be said that I hit my head on some issues toward the end, one task in particular requires you to take several photos of a squirrel at various timestamps on playback, I had delivered all but one and the last photo wouldn't seem to register with the game as having a squirrel in the photo despite being there - solution ended up having me take a screenshot a second or so out of that timestamp despite the game specifically asking for a time. The framerate (on Switch at least) took a dive a couple times as well which doesn't necessarily bother me but it worth mentioning for those interested in this game.
My final qualm might be a bit picky given the 'grounded ethereal' vibe of the game, but it bothered me the total lack of 'presence' the player character has. I wasn't necessarily bothered by the fact that they don't speak at all, but rather that they didn't have any hands, legs or feet. This wouldn't really be a problem if there was some kind of sound design aspect (footsteps etc.) that did some of the legwork instead but instead I felt like a sort of sluggish, floaty orb which felt a little odd. Nitpicky or not, I felt that it significantly affected the way that I interacted with the world.
Those things aside, this is a short, enjoyable surveillance game with a very striking aesthetic and a folky, quietly sinister story that I'm glad I ended up playing.

Side Note: I'd love for there to have been a way for me to save and/or share my photos - maybe in a future update.

I played this wanting to get better at action games and didn't expect too much but holy heck this game WHIPS.
One of the better 'based on an established property' games I've played, you can tell Treasure bled a genuine love for Tezuka characters when the put the thing together. Levels are packed to the rafters with people you can bump into that become part of your "Omega Factor" and power-up Astro Boy.
The level design itself is largely weak but laser-focused on delivering a rip-roaring fun time. Sometimes it's a run-and-gun game, sometimes there's some platforming adjacent action going on, sometimes it's a shoot-em-up.. It refuses to be pinned down and I really respected that because everything it does it (generally) pulls off with flair. Some of the stages can be brief but only because the game wants to shepherd you to the main attraction: this game has some of the best boss design I have ever come across. The bosses are so varied and well designed - really tough but good at becoming incrementally surmountable until you feel every bit the superhero Astro Boy is. Can't commend it high enough for that.
The game has some persistent technical issues (a few areas suffer from some very significant slowdown when there are too many enemies/effects on the screen) but otherwise this was a great experience and I can't wait to play whatever else Treasure made.

Really beautiful game. Well written in a way that games aren't normally well written - normal when people say that a game has good writing it's another way of saying 'the dialogue is snappy' or some such. This feels much bigger than that, and solves many of the issues of "story games" for me. The game itself is sort of a point-and-click adventure game but stripped down largely to character interactions and given direct control of the cast. The 'gaminess' of the game is all in service of the story and, as such, makes it perfectly suited for this format.
I have quite literally just finished this and have so many thoughts about it that I can't really coherently put them together but all I can say is that it's magical, daring storytelling that you're unlikely to see anywhere else.

(Initially reviewed this with 4 1/2 stars but amended to 5 after stewing on it for a bit).