I was considering rewriting my Steam review, but knowing how Steam works with "updated" reviews - they won't be shown to people on the home page, so no one will know what I think of this game. So I'll use Backloggd to write a review instead.

I should preface this by saying that I've been playing Counter-Strike since I was a kid. I remember the days of me and my brother looking through pirate forums to download those "NOSTEAM" cracks of 1.6 to play together or on stuff like zombie servers and such.

I've always had an interest in Counter-Strike. In 2014, I decided to finally get CS:GO. That game...for better or worse, changed my life and who I am as a person. I don't wanna get too deep into it here, you can read my Steam review linked above to get an understanding of what I'm talking about.

Counter-Strike 2 itself...well...I like the game for what it's worth. It's still the same old CS:GO for the most part that I remember playing. And that was fully intentional - Valve was rather open with the fact that CS2 was meant to be the "same game", its whole purpose - update the engine and open up the framework to allow for bigger things for the game in the future. That was the whole point.

But Counter-Strike 2 launched far too early. I'm sure everyone's heard this saying, but it bares repeating and this is not something we should let Valve sweep under the rug. Counter-Strike 2 launched unfinished. Missing game modes, no new content, poorly thought out reworks to Competitive, the list goes on and on.

As of January 5th, 2024, we are still missing:
- All of the War Games (Arms Race / Demolition / Flying Scoutsman / Retakes)
- Danger Zone
- A whole bunch of maps

Say whatever you want about those modes "not being popular" or whatever else you want. I agree that stuff like Demolition was never played (you were barely ever able to find a match on CS:GO even when it was live) because of how poorly aged some of the modes were. That does not, however, excuse the removal of those modes without a formal explanation from Valve on their thought process behind them. I understand they revealed this in an interview later on, but why was a statement not provided ON LAUNCH?

Counter-Strike 2 launched with so little content that it's laughable. The "finished product" is practically identical to the Limited Test from March 2023. With egregious issues such as misaligned hitboxes and "elevator boosts" being a thing ON RELEASE. On what is supposed to be a "finished product". Yes, I understand they fixed these issues and are continuing to fix them with weekly updates, but that is not the point. They are fixing things that were not even broken to begin with in CS:GO.

There's more stuff to mention, like how MR12 hasn't had its economy modified to compensate. The current way the economy in CS2 is balanced is still towards MR15 (a.k.a. first to 16 wins). This genuinely makes matches in Counter-Strike 2 completely unbalanced towards the winning side.

Speaking of Competitive mode - Premier was straight up broken on release. To the point Valve had to recalibrate all of the Premier ranks for EVERYONE. My Premier rating went from 8000 to 15000 in one match when they finished it, which is like....what? So what's my actual rating?

And regular Competitive has just become the new Unranked. Several times I've queued into a match that was completely one-sided. Sometimes to my benefit and I do 28 kills in a single game and solo-carry my team, or my team has one good player and the enemy is a 5-stack who used to be Global Elite in CS:GO and played FACEIT at like 2k ELO. It's just not fun.

There is so much more I can go over that CS2 fundamentally broke, but there are dozens and dozens of Counter-Strike content creators saying this already all over the place, I'm sure you don't need me repeating it here.

As of January 2024, I still do not recommend Counter-Strike 2. This is such a bad release from Valve that I'm shocked they okay'ed this to begin with. I would still recommend people hold off on Counter-Strike 2 for at least another year and wait until Valve properly addresses the game's issues, at least until the game is feature-complete. Right now - it's not.

The worst part is that you cannot play CS:GO on the official servers anymore. Yes, Valve did give us the option to download the legacy CS:GO build through the Betas tab, but all that is good for is offline/workshop content or community servers. And good luck finding any actually good community servers, believe me - I tried.

It's so saddening to see the state Counter-Strike 2 is, especially as a long-time player of the game. I wanted to like Counter-Strike 2.

Unlike the rest of this website, I'm gonna be out here writing a positive review on this game. I am no stranger to expressing my disappointment with the Neptunia series for the last 6 or so years. I don't keep it a secret that I think the Neptunia series has been on a massive downwards trend after 2017's 4GO.

With the series starting out great, with tons of momentum generated not just by the first 3 games on the PS3, but with the Re;Birth series on the Vita & the Vita-exclusive spinoffs, which were eventually brought to PC, culminating with the release of VII back in 2015 - what I consider to be this series' best game overall, Neptunia looked like it was in a good spot. Decent games, tons of momentum and lots of fanfare from the diehard people following it along, myself included.

But ever since 2017, this series has been stagnant. The only things releasing for Neptunia were cash-grabby spinoff games that served to do nothing more than just to pad out the time. Neptunia stopped being treated as a series meant to parody the gaming industry, and instead turned to a series about being "nep = funny". As a hardcore Neptunia fan, it was heartbreaking to witness this firsthand, especially when the "secret 10 year anniversary project" ended up being a remake of a remaster of a remake of the first game for the PS5. It was genuinely heartbreaking to watch.

Out of nowhere, this game was announced. I didn't know what to think of it when I saw it. Another spinoff in the style of 4GO? Sure seemed like it based on the initial trailer of the game. But then I see the original Gamindustri from mk2, Victory & VII...but it wasn't that surprising, considering Neptunia U used the dimension from Re;Birth1 as the basis for its plot. But, "okay", I was thinking, "maybe we're finally getting a spinoff in the main timeline of Neptunia for once". The game comes out in Japan, and I start hearing whispers that the game is decent. And that the game is good. But I didn't pay it any mind because the Neptunia community loves doing things like giving a game a positive review because "has nep, nep funny" (wish that was a joke). I kept my hopes low and was expecting the worst either way.

So now the game is out in the West. I have the physical Calendar Edition for it. And I just came out of my first playthrough for the game. My emotions are all over the place for this game, and the high rating attached to the game might change over time, but...holy shit, I'm so happy to finally see a step in the right direction for the series. This game properly positively surprised me. It does so many things right for the series. And honestly - I wouldn't call this a spinoff title. I'd just call this a proper follow-up after VII, just with a different gameplay model. But either way, let's get into it.

Story
At first it was really difficult for me to pinpoint where the story takes place in relation to VII. Is it a sequel? Is it a prequel? Is it neither? Fortunately, rather early on the game does indeed establish that this game takes place after VII, as Uzume does get mentioned within the story...once. Yeah, once. So it at least establishes that the other characters are aware of Uzume, placing it firmly after the events of VII.

The story itself though...well, I thought the story overall was good. I genuinely enjoyed the story start to finish, with it basically catching Gamindustri up to the current gaming landscape from VII. The 2 new maker characters, who I won't spoil, were a genuine treat to see, especially since one of them is a direct reference to the publisher of another rather niche Japanese series. If you know, you know.

However, I do have some qualms with it. Namely the pacing of the story. For as good as the story is overall, I think its pacing is...bad. Each chapter of the game goes by stupidly fast, to the point it makes me wonder why they didn't combine several of the chapters into a few larger chapters. This game has 13 chapters overall, starting with Chapter 0 and ending with Chapter 12, yet some of the chapters genuinely last no longer than 40 minutes, and it just felt awkward. You talk to Histoire, get your next assignment, do one dungeon run and you're onto the next chapter, which was just...huh?

There was also another disappointing aspect of this game's story, which might sound silly, being the lack of many CGs throughout the entire game for key moments. Towards the end this was remedied, but throughout most of the game - there were actually very few "special" CGs for scenes which I would deem important, yet this game doesn't, apparently. I won't spoil anything, but you'll see what I mean if you play this game.

But aside from that, I appreciate the fact that the game has brought back a darker tone to the story, making it fall more in-line with the main games of the series of mk2, Victory and VII. The stakes are high and the risk all of the characters have to face is genuine, especially when it's revealed at the end what exactly it is they are dealing with. In a way, a lot of it reminds me of mk2 and its...infamous non-canon ending, which according to this game - could actually be canon in some fashion, which is an interesting thought experiment to have for those who have been around long enough.

Overall - good story for Neptunia, but poorly paced and structured. I still enjoyed it as a whole, but I'll admit it could have been better. Quality-wise and enjoyment-wise I would put it above mk2 but below VII in terms of how much I personally liked this game's story (with Victory being the best still for me).

Gameplay
Neptunia Sisters vs Sisters does, admittedly, feel like a huge downgrade in gameplay from 4 Goddesses Online, the previous hack & slash combat game that I played in the series. It took me a rather long time to get used to how this game's mechanics work and to have a decent time with its combat system, though I will admit I still think 4GO was much, much better in terms of gameplay.

Sisters vs Sisters feels like it's trying to find a happy medium of the JRPG entries of old and the combat mechanics established by this series' spinoff titles, such as Neptunia U, MegaTag & 4GO, yet the attempt here feels rather undercooked. There are many nitpicks about the gameplay that I disliked, but let's break them down one-by-one.

The combat was, initially, horribly clunky for me and it took me a few in-game chapters to actually get used to how fighting in this game worked. You traverse the dungeons of the game much like you would in any of the old JRPG entries - you are placed into a level with an "Event" marker showing you where your destination is and there are enemies around that you can Symbol Attack or just run into regularly that you fight. That much hasn't changed, however the main difference is that battles are no longer turn-based, rather - both you and your enemies attack each other at the same time. But the way the game flows & explains its combat mechanics is...unorthodox.

As an example, I did not know until halfway through the game that you can actually put up a shield to block attacks, or that you can dash out of the way to dodge attacks, however - I never ended up using this feature. On top of its mechanics being rather clunky, I didn't find them useful since once you're in a combo and attacking your foe - you cannot break out of it to put up a shield or to quickly dash away. You can do this if you equip a specific disc that you can develop, sure, but without it - once you're attacking, you're attacking, and if your enemy isn't stunlocked from your hits - good luck dodging anything coming your way. The implementation of these two mechanics just felt half-baked and not very intuitive, serving more to break the flow of gameplay rather than to engage me further in the combat. My strategy instead was to make my characters as tanky as possible and brute-force my way through everything.

Another thing I didn't end up using whatsoever throughout the entire game was the EXE drive. Yeah, not even once. I didn't really understand how it's even meant to be used, or how you charge the EXE meter to let you use it. Do you need to be in HDD mode to perform an EXE move? I don't know, the game never tells you. They show you that they exist, and there is a tutorial card explaining the EXE drive, but I didn't get how it works and ended up completely skipping it. It's been a trend that ever since they released Re;Birth3, Compile Heart has been needlessly changing around the EXE drive system for whatever reason, reducing its use with each subsequent release. The system was decent enough the way it was in mk2, Victory, Re;Birth1 and Re;Birth2, but the implementation was perfected in VII. Yet after that point, they sought out to fix what wasn't even broken to begin with, and that trend continues here too, sadly.

Lastly for my endless rant - I don't like most of the dungeons in this game. What doesn't help is that there are tons of reused dungeons and aesthetics. You see it was soon as chapter 1 of the game - you get 2 identical forest dungeons with the exact same layout, just with different entry/exit positions, different "safe zones" locations and different enemies. Otherwise, they're the same dungeon. And this happens throughout the whole game. Do you like Virtua Forest? Good, here's 5 more Virtua Forests, with some of them being at night to spice things up. Admittedly the old games did it too, especially the likes of mk2 & Victory, but it's just a shame that this is still a recurring issue.

With that out of the way, the gameplay otherwise I felt was fine. Without the clunky dashing & blocking mechanics, and completely ignoring the EXE system like I did for my playthrough, I found Neptunia Sisters vs Sisters overall to be a very comfortable experience. The combat, while repetitive and formulaic once you get the hang of it, is fast, frantic and fun. Difficulty-wise I had absolutely 0 issue with the game in any capacity. Dare I say that I found this game way too easy? To the point that I didn't "game over" even once. The closest I got was almost dying to one boss in Chapter 8, since 2 of my 3 party members just blindly ran into the boss and died, and here I was chipping away at the boss with Rom, who the boss for some reason never managed to land a hit on, no matter what I did. But while the mechanics were difficult to grasp at first, once I got the hang of it - no battles posed any real threat, which I don't know if this means the game is way too easy, or if I'm just good at the game. Probably the former rather than the latter.

Speaking of balance, I find it absolutely hilarious how some characters have been jacked up like crazy in terms of damage from the previous games. My party throughout 80% of the game consisted of Nepgear, Uni & Rom, mainly because I found these 3 to synergize perfectly with each other, as they all have combos that can directly lead into a follow-up attack from the other. But there's also one more thing - Rom. Rom is absolutely busted in this game. I don't know what kind of edibles Blanc fed her between VII and this game, but Rom is straight up the strongest character in this game, period, no questions asked. She used to be a dedicated support in the old games, with a limited health pool and limited offensive capability - they defined this as her role rather consistently in the older games. While she retains a few supportive abilities in SvS and her low health pool, her damage scaling has been jacked up to unbelievable degrees. Rom straight up shreds pretty much every single enemy in the game, there's nothing she wasn't able to handle. Remember when I mentioned 2 of my 3 characters dying in a boss battle during chapter 8? The one character that wasn't dead was Rom. Because I was able to effectively stunlock the boss as Rom and cheese my way to victory with her ridiculous magic attacks. Honestly I found this funny. By the endgame Nepgear can kinda rival Rom in terms of raw power, but Rom has the advantage of being a ranged character, whereas Nepgear is a melee-based character, meaning that Rom has a lower chance of getting stunlocked by the enemy.

Stepping away from the combat side of things, other parts of the game I think were handled well. Disc development is back in much of the same way as the older games, acting as a "choose your own stat buffs" thing, with you needing to develop discs in order to get what you're looking for. In this game, they sort of combined "Plans" and the scouting system into one universal system where you send out a Scout to develop a disc with a specific genre and bonus addon. I think the system here works fine enough and I did end up using it...until I realized all of my characters have everything they need, so once I got all the necessary discs for everyone - I kinda forgot about the disc system by the endgame.

The "Chirper" system replaces the Basilicom Quests system from the old games. And by "replaces", I mean it basically works the exact same way, just meant to look like it's a social media feed instead. And it's...fine? I never understood the point of the "Chirper" system when it comes to looking at a Twitter-esque feed of everything. I never understood the point of it - I thought it would have an effect on the in-game world, but no. It means...nothing, really. Otherwise, yeah, it's just how you do side-quests and how you earn characters for Disc Development.

Also, one more thing - getting to explore Planeptune for once was actually super duper neat. It gave a proper sense of scale as to how large a nation is. A few things that could've made it better though would've been a faster means of traveling around without using a menu to warp everywhere (such as maybe a bike? a scooter? a sprint button?), and being able to explore the other nations as well, since Planeptune is the only explorable nation in this game. Maybe in a future installment of the series we'll get to see Lastation, Leanbox and Lowee expanded upon in this way too, I hope.

Graphics, Sound & Optimization:
Yeah, well...this one was rough in these departments. On the PS4, graphically the game looks...rather mediocre. Lighting is pretty basic and baked-in (aka not real time) and aesthetically the game can look pretty ugly at times. Nowhere near as bad as how ugly VIIR can get at certain points, but the game certainly doesn't look very pretty a lot of the time. However, Neptunia wasn't ever really known for being "graphically impressive", so it didn't really bother me much how the game looked...rather bad in some places. Noticeable, yes, but never distracting.

Sound-wise...this game's sound design is a bit of a mess. Now, where it counts - it's good. Landing attacks feels satisfying and punchy, just how you want them to. Navigating menus - perfectly fine. Character voice acting? I played on the Japanese dub, but yeah - it's pretty good (except for Neptune, annoying as always). However in other areas - not so much. Some characters are notably quieter than others when they talk, some sound effects are stupidly loud to the point it could hurt your ears (I'm looking at you Rom), and the sound itself, at least for me, had its moments where it would just be very choppy.

Music-wise, it's alright. There are plenty of songs reused from the older games, but the game does include its fair share of original tracks as well. The brand new original tracks are properly good - they are very pleasant to listen to and don't actually get ear-grating or boring after a while, which is decent. The reused songs, however...hit & miss as with every other game. The one song that gets reused from VII is "The Code ~Noisy and Calm~" by Kenji Kaneko, and it's still a fantastic piece of music, but others are...well, I didn't like them in their original games they're from and I still don't like them now.

Optimization on the PS4 wasn't that good. I've noticed plenty of times when the game started to lag and chug. Both during gameplay and outside of gameplay. I already mentioned the choppy audio at random bits part, but particularly when smoke appears during a cutscene - I can hear the Unity Engine just screaming & begging for its life for some reason. It's inconsistent and it's a shame that this too remains a problem that wasn't ever properly addressed from the mainline games. But not entirely unexpected for Neptunia, I suppose. The game ran perfectly fine and smoothly about 70% of the time though, I didn't experience any hard-crashes or save corruptions, or anything like the sort, so that's a bonus. Sure beats Re;Birth3 which would randomly softlock you at certain points on PC.

Verdict:
Well, they've done it. They finally released a Neptunia game I finally enjoyed playing, despite its flaws.

Sisters vs SIsters is far from perfect. I think I made that clear with how much I was able to complain about every aspect of the game, from story to gameplay to misc. things. And to be honest, to the average player - I do not recommend this game. Unless you are willing to deal with the negatives I presented about the game, I recommend skipping this game and look for something else. Hell, even from the Neptunia series I'd direct you to VII or something like 4GO if you don't like JRPGs.

But for Neptunia fans like me - this game is such a breath of fresh air. Such a good step in the right direction. And such a massive win for the whole fandom after 8 years of mediocrity and ambiguity for the future of the series.

Sisters vs Sisters feels like an apology for those 8 years of stagnant, useless releases. It feels like an apology for the disappointment of the 10th anniversary of the series. And for that - I am so happy this game came out.

If you're a Neptunia fan like me - burned by the series' mediocre cash-grabby run for the last 8 years - give Sisters vs Sisters a shot. It's worth it.

(this is a modified version of my Steam review for this game. you can read the original here: https://steamcommunity.com/id/huuishuu/recommended/71113/)

Honestly...I'm not so sure if I do recommend the original Sonic 1 or not. If I ever go back to Sonic 1 - I usually do it to play the plethora of ROM hacks for this game, from simple changes like adding the spindash or huge changes like revamping the entire game, I'd be hard-pressed to tell you that I replay the original 1991 release very often. It's because this game feels dated to play.

Don't get me wrong - I acknowledge that this game was incredibly revolutionary for its time. This game birthed one of my favorite franchises of all-time and the influence it had on making Sega a powerhouse in the 90s can't be overstated enough. But when there are so many better Sonic games out there - Sonic 2, Sonic 3, Sonic Mania, heck even the Sonic Advance games - the only merit I'd see in playing Sonic 1 is either for the ROM hacks like I've mentioned (I highly recommend the spindash ROM hack or the Super/Hyper Sonic in Sonic 1 ROM hack) or for those seeking to see how the blue blur's humble beginnings looked like nearly 30 years ago.

There is a better version of this game out there, however it's stuck in Sonic Origins for $45. While Origins itself is not a good deal overall, the version there is objectively better than the original in so many ways that it makes it difficult to return to the original game.

But you know what's even better than the Sonic Origins version? Sonic 1 Forever. That is how you should play this original game.

Influential for its time, definitely, but has aged like milk. When your best zone is the first zone - you know you have a problem, in my opinion.

A massively underrated game in the Need for Speed series, one that has only gotten better over time. As BlackBox's final game and essentially their swan-song, they went out with a bang on this one. Literally.

While the game is very short, it ends up being a very memorable experience all throughout.

This game has its stinker moments, definitely, especially in the second half of the game where it doesn't feel like this game was built for the faster cars in mind, but overall - I'd say this game is an enjoyable ride that's worth revisiting.

If you hated The Run, honestly try it again, especially if you can get yourself an Xbox 360 or PS3 copy.

(this is a repost of my Steam review. you can read the original review here: https://steamcommunity.com/id/huuishuu/recommended/415480/)

Hyperdevotion Noire is what I personally consider to be the worst Neptunia game in the whole series. Spin-off or otherwise. This game, just as a whole, is god awful. This is the one time that I just never bothered to finish a Neptunia game because I just could not stomach sitting through this messy, sloppy hack-job of a game. Hyperdevotion Noire is really the bottom of the barrel when it comes to the Neptunia series.

Even as a fan of the series I found it really difficult to enjoy this game. I'm all for the concept of giving each main Neptunia character their own game focused on them, after all - MegaTagmension Blanc + Neptune vs. Zombies was a decent side-show and Superdimension Neptune vs. Sega Hard Girls was a really good spin on the Neptunia formula, but Hyperdevotion falls flat on its face in pretty much every single aspect.

The game fails in its two most important categories, those being story and gameplay. The biggest issue with the story is the self-insert "protagonist" and how they're meant to represent you - the player. They are...unnecessary in the biggest way possible. And more often than not - they are the antithesis of what you, as a player, are thinking. Perhaps I'm an idiot and that was the whole joke, in which case - fair enough (after all, their name does get changed from "Player" to "Secretary" very early on), but even with that in mind - this game has some of the worst fanfiction-esque writing in the entire series. I'm serious, the story in this game genuinely reads like a really bad Neptunia fanfiction.

In terms of gameplay, it's an SRPG or Strategy Role Playing Game. That would be fine if the game just wasn't so ridiculously slow. Seriously, it's just so incredibly BORING and SLOW. On top of that - unfair! By that, I mean the AI can, more often than not, outright cheat. One important detail to remember is that the AI is unaffected by stage hazards. Only your party is! That, coupled with the insanely slow, tedious and monotonous gameplay, makes it frustrating. It will take you so long to get done with a single stage (I clocked up to 50 minutes on just one stage - and that was very early on!) - it's the main reason I just decided to say "screw it", dropped the game and never picked it back up. And I'm not planning to pick it back up because that was after a horrible first impression.

Just...stay away from this game. It's slow, it's boring, it's unfair and it's just not interesting in any way. This is genuinely the worst that the Neptunia series has to offer.

(repost of my original review on Steam with some minor edits. you can read the original review here: https://steamcommunity.com/id/huuishuu/recommended/584400)

As a massive fan of all 3 Mega Drive classics, Sonic Mania is truly an incredible experience. More so with the Encore mode in the Plus DLC. It's got everything the old games had - fantastic level design, amazingly catchy tunes and references for those classic folk who grew up with this sort of thing. I loved it. Is it my nostalgia talking? Definitely. But that doesn't change the fact I think Sonic Mania is an amazing time to be had, and, for the first time in a really long time - a Sonic game I can genuinely recommend to non-Sonic fans. I think it's just that good.


Are there negatives? Of course there are. While the level design for the most part is great, there are bits and pieces that I do not enjoy, such as the abundance of bottomless pits in Flying Battery Zone and the sheer length of Titanic Monarch Zone. Bit more of a common criticism, but the lack of variety in the levels is also a huge missed opportunity. A lot of the best parts of the game are in those original stages, including the music (Press Garden Zone is literally the best stage in the game, design & song wise). I'm not saying the remixed levels are bad at all, but it's just that...we already had this sort of thing with Sonic Generations in 2011. This makes Mania feel like a 2D Sonic Generations at times, except with much more intuitive Classic Sonic controls and a more accurate art-style. Also the lackluster tie-in with Sonic Forces was, pardon the pun, forced.* You'll get what I mean by that if you've played Forces.

But despite that - are you looking for a great 2D platformer to sink your time into? Sonic Mania is for you. It's got a boat-load of replayability too - medals, special stages, different characters with unique play styles and their own unique level design, time attack, Encore Mode with the Plus DLC, achievements...what else would you want?

Shadow the Hedgehog is a game I really love because I really like the ideas presented here. The morality system that lets you dictate Shadow's allegiance. The branching pathways you can go to not just in the levels, but in the story as well. The unique sandbox gameplay that this game provides makes for a unique platforming experience. The cheesy early 2000s teenager angst soundtrack - everything is here and accounted for, and I love it.

This game falls apart very fast though. I'm not gonna repeat the same things you've heard other people say, but yes - the controls are bad and take getting used to, having to replay the game 10 times for the "true ending" is stupid, the idea of the true ending in general is stupid because it invalidates the morality system as a whole, and just poor decisions made in the game overall.

Shadow the Hedgehog is a game that, in my opinion, deserved a second attempt. I want Sega to try this style of game again because this formula has so much potential. Remove what didn't work in this game, rework the things that sound good on paper but were executed poorly, and improve upon the things that did work.

This style of game needs another chance in the Sonic series.

(this is a repost of my Steam review for this game. you can read the original review here: https://steamcommunity.com/id/huuishuu/recommended/253230/)

Short and to the point - I think A Hat In Time is one of the best 3D platformers I've ever played, and if you haven't tried it - you should. Was that enough to convince you? Good! Hope you enjoy this game as much as I did.

Still not convinced? Allow me to try to do that then. A Hat in Time is just a really fun game, period. Usually I'd go on to talk about a game's story mode, but for once - I don't think that's necessary. A Hat in Time's main focus isn't to tell a compelling narrative or to constantly break the fourth wall for some bigger picture - its focus is to take you on a fun yet silly adventure. And the game's design is representative of that.

I earnestly love the level design in this game. The levels encourage exploration and always have a reward for those looking to deviate a bit from the normal path. Be it pons, yarns for hats or even hourglasses (the main collectible) - there's always something waiting for everyone. Of course, one sentiment I share with a lot of people is that it's really easy to get lost in the game's forgettable locations - Subcon Forest is particularly awful with that and I ran around in circles trying to find my destination on a number of occasions - but it makes up for it in the end.

And while I did mention this game doesn't really care too much about the story, the humor in this game is compelling enough to keep you engaged throughout the whole adventure. Chapter 2 and the conductor is seriously my favorite part of the game with the whole detective murder story aesthetic. It's executed so well, it's written well and it just makes me smile all the way through each time I play through it.

As with every game - not everything is perfect. I mentioned Chapter 2 and the conductor, but I also wanna mention Chapter 2 and DJ Grooves - screw his parade. I hate the parade mission. It's needlessly difficult and infuriating given how it's basically littered with "bottomless pits". And need I mention how I think Subcon Forest makes you feel like you run around in circles because everything looks the same? Alpine Skyline too with the giant bird was also a bit irksome for me.

But despite that - I can't praise A Hat in Time enough. Do you love 3D platformers? Do you want one that primarily just wants to focus on making sure you have a good time? Are you in for a good soundtrack and witty humor with clever level design catering to all skill levels? A Hat in Time is the perfect game for you. If you haven't tried it yet - you should.

(this is a repost of my Steam review for this game with some slight modifications. you can read the original review here: https://steamcommunity.com/id/huuishuu/recommended/71163/)

Sonic the Hedgehog 2 builds upon what worked in the original game while improving upon or outright removing the things that didn't work in the original game. In every shape, way and form - Sonic 2 is the perfect sequel to Sonic 1.

Let's run it from the top. The entire game was designed around the same philosophy that Sonic 1's Green Hill Zone had, making every stage a frantic, fast paced rollercoaster with clever paths and goodies to explore. A couple of my own personal favorite zones include Aquatic Ruin Zone, Hill Top Zone and Chemical Plant Zone. On top of that - they trimmed unnecessary fat from Sonic 1 in almost every single zone, that being the fact that almost every zone in the game only lasts 2 acts! Although not every stage is perfect - I particularly dislike the likes of Casino Night and Oil Ocean, and especially Metropolis Zone, being the only zone with 3 acts in the entire game, hence why I said "most".

I could go on more about the things this game added - a second playable character, that being Tails, the addition of Super Sonic, the reworked special stages (which I actually kind of dislike), etc. but there isn't a whole lot that I can't say more about Sonic 2 that hasn't been said before.

This is gonna be a hot take - this is one of my favorite Neptunia games in the entire series. Which is weird to say, because this game is VERY hated. And the hate, in my opinion, is justified, with such riveting issues as:
- Frequent framerate issues. This game struggles to maintain a playable framerate a lot of the time.
- Unnecessarily long 40+ minute cutscenes. Yes you can legitimately fall asleep to some of these, especially when they bring nothing of value.
- Brutally difficult gameplay that, much like its predecessor, requires hours upon hours of grinding to progress.

But then why do I consider it one of my favorite games in the series? Two things:
1. The redesigned gameplay that became a staple of the series that later games and re-releases would adapt and iterate on.
2. The story itself.

Yes I did say the cutscenes can be unnecessarily long and bring nothing of real value to the player. But to me, they are the reason I love this game so much. In this game, Neptune gets transported to a dimension that starts from almost 0. It starts out parodying the video game crash of the 80s, and picks up right when only Sega and Nintendo were the big shots. And, throughout the game, you get to see the rise of the gaming industry and see not only the new consoles (nations) that rise up, but also the problems they encounter on the way.

This game is fantastic. It is memorable and just fun to revisit. I have gotten every single ending in this game and have finished 4 separate playthroughs of the game, totaling to about 450 hours in this game. I enjoyed it and I really loved it.

(repost of my Steam review with slight modifications. you can read the original review here: https://steamcommunity.com/id/huuishuu/recommended/282900/)

Re;Birth1 is a very bittersweet game to me. On one hand - this was my gateway introduction to the entire Neptunia franchise. On the other hand - the way Compile Heart/Idea Factory have been treating this title as of the last few years is nothing short of baffling and downright confusing.

Before I get into the nitty-gritty, let me get some things out of the way first. Re;Birth1 is a remake of the 2010 Hyperdimension Neptunia for the PS3, built from the ground-up with a story rewrite using Hyperdimension Neptunia Victory's engine and gameplay. Re;Birth1 was then later remastered in mid 2018 for the PlayStation Vita and PlayStation 4 under the title of "Re;Birth1 Plus" and that version has never been released outside of Japan and outside of the PS4 & Vita. However - features from it have been back-ported to Re;Birth1 and added as paid DLC. Had that been the end - I'd chalk this up to just a mention and a warning. Except...during the 10th anniversary livestream - Compile Heart had teased a big new project for the Neptunia series, and the following month - it was revealed to be a remake of...Re;Birth1 Plus for the PS5. There is a remake of a remaster of a remake. It's called Neptunia reVerse.

Now that reVerse has been released in the west, it left Re;Birth1 totally obsolete. This exact same situation happened to Fairy Fencer F and Fairy Fencer F: Advent Dark Force.

So just a bit of a cautionary tale for everyone, I suppose.

But...I still love Re;Birth1. Granted, over the years my rose-tinted goggles for the entire Neptunia series have started to fade and my disdain for the state & future of this series is huge, but revisiting the glory days of new mainline entries and remakes alongside is great. Re;Birth1, as mentioned previously, features the same familiar gameplay of Neptunia Victory, which has since been standardized across all of the mainline Neptunia games. And while it's relatively primitive here compared to, say, Megadimension Neptunia VII, most people coming from that game to this one will still find themselves to be relatively at home.

My complaints about Re;Birth1's gameplay comes in the form of balancing and practicality. This game sucks at balancing characters in my honest opinion. There are some who seem like braindead choices and inclusions on your team as they are stupidly powerful (the maker characters or the DLC characters (especially Histoire)) and then there are the absolutely useless characters (most of the CPUs like Neptune until she gets Victory Slash and some of the DLC characters (especially Uzume)) regardless of how much you invest in them.

And in terms of practicality - this is something I criticize the other games for too, but that'd be the "break" attacks, which are genuinely near useless. I hardly ever find a use for them as every attack can damage the enemy's guard. Some "power" attacks can even deal more damage to an enemy's guard meter than "break" attacks, which kind of nullifies their point entirely. At this point, my strategy for every Neptunia game has devolved to removing the "break" attacks from every character I get and go all-in on "power" and "rush", as that seems to be the most optimal way to reduce grinding.

You could argue that this game looks and runs dated, with a forced 60FPS cap and upscaled PS Vita graphics, but that's honestly small potatoes. I'd argue that the bigger crime with this game is how forgettable its soundtrack is, barring in mind a few exceptions like Vert's theme or the game's opening theme.

But...would I recommend Re;Birth1? Sure. This game goes pretty cheap when sales are on so if you're looking for that "first step" into the Neptunia series - you can start here. Personally I'd recommend starting with Re;Birth2, as that game signifies the beginning of the "canonical Neptunia story" but if you wanna just get a basic introduction to the characters and the main villain - Re;Birth1 is a good stepping stone, if confusing at times (you know what I mean if you've already played it).

(this is a repost of my Steam review for this game with some modifications. you can read my original review here: https://steamcommunity.com/id/huuishuu/recommended/347830/)

As much as I love Fairy Fencer F, as much as it is among my favorite games from Compile Heart, as charming as the game is to me, I unfortunately cannot recommend it anymore due to the existence of Fairy Fence F: Advent Dark Force. FFF:ADF is pretty much the same FFF but with A LOT more content. From additional stories, new endings and even new playable characters, it's pretty much an upgraded version of FFF in basically every single aspect. Even has a graphical upgrade too.

(this is a repost of my Steam review for this game with some modifications. you can read the original review here: https://steamcommunity.com/id/huuishuu/recommended/400910/)

This is a game I played in Christmas of 2018. And I very quickly fell in love with it, putting in about 20 hours in a mere 2 days.

There's so many things I want to talk about with this game, but I'll start from the most fundamental part - the gameplay. It's just fantastic. It's a metroidvania platformer mixed with a bullethell game. And it's so good at being just a great game. The controls are super good - they are responsive, accurate and satisfying in every sense of the word. While at the start of the game you may be limited in terms of movement options, by the time you hit the late-game - you'll basically be going anywhere you want, whenever you want. It's that kind of gratifying feeling that makes exploration in a game like this really fun. Thanks to this, backtracking to previously completed stages never feels like a necessity or a drag because the game properly rewards you with new areas to explore alongside with new items to gain, new enemies to fight and even new characters to discover. It's never over until the game says it's over. And even then it's probably still not over.

On top of the solid controls, the combat is also very satisfying. While invincibility frames & slight knockback can be a minor annoyance, nothing in this game felt cheap. The game gives you a fair chance but also requires some degree of precision to dodge if you don't want to constantly lose health. Although this being heavily inspired by bullethell shooters, especially during boss battles, visibility can sometimes be a problem, as stuff tends to blend in with the background or with each other even and it may feel like you get hit by something you didn't see. But if you do pay attention while the boss is attacking then it's absolutely not a problem.

The story is a bit weird. Overall I did like it, but I didn't like the inconsistencies between the main game and the post game. I'm not gonna spoil anything here, but you may notice narrative inconsistencies from time to time. Besides that, the story doesn't try too hard to take itself seriously and that's for the better - you're a bunny girl running around with a fairy and a giant hammer. If this game tried to be ridiculously serious with its narrative then I'd find that pretty jarring for a game of this nature. Aside from that though, there were a few nitpicky quirks with the story, such as a couple of spelling mistakes that made themselves pretty obvious. While I never really outright laughed at this game's comedy, it never bored me and always kept me engaged, which is a good thing since that means it doesn't get very repetitive. Although some of the achievements in this game definitely are funny, I liked the sense of humor of the achievements, especially some of the references.

The soundtrack is just on another level for me. Well done by all the composers of the soundtrack, especially 3R2 with amazing tracks such as cyberspace.exe, Get On With It, Bounce Bounce and more. I also really liked songs like the Volcanic Caverns theme and Exotic Laboratory theme. But as stated - every song in the game is just incredible. It's rare for me to say that I didn't dislike any of the songs. I ended up buying the game's soundtrack for listening outside of the game.

Although one thing I will mention about the game that I feel is a bit of a negative is that the boss battles can feel a bit repetitive. Almost always you'll be placed in a wide open area with the boss you're fighting and it's really just a case of "dodge, attack, wait, repeat". Not a lot of the bosses in the game felt like they really challenged your skill otherwise. I do understand why they designed it like this - so speedrunning the game didn't feel like certain items were crucial in order to progress but because of that, the final result ended up with some repetitive boss battles. The best battle in the game was the main game's final boss because it was the closest thing in the game that ended up being even a little bit mechanically challenging for the player. A close second would be the boss battle in Natural Aquarium due to the higher jump that you get from being underwater, allowing for some flashy combos to be made.

There is still an entire OCEAN of content I haven't covered - badges, the item shop & how simple its integration is, new game+, speedrun mode, boss rush, etc. but that should be a testament to just how much stuff there is in the game. Overall it's a really solid metroidvania bullethell platformer. If you're at all on-the-fence about this game, just get it. It's absolutely worth it and I loved every second of it. In fact, I'll probably give this game repeat visits just to see how much stuff I missed.