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.

(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?

I didn't enjoy Sonic Heroes. While the game has its positives, there are so many issues with the game that prevent me from properly enjoying it or being that nostalgic about it. Yes, I've played this game as a kid, and even as a kid I didn't enjoy this game. And sadly, it seems as though I enjoy this game even less as an adult.

Say what you will about the game, but I think this game has some of the worst controls in the whole series with some of the most frustrating level design and repetitive gameplay. And I LIKE Shadow The Hedgehog, despite the fact that that game is WORSE in these aspects.

But with Shadow the Hedgehog, the worst I ever got with the game was bored out of my mind and, at times, falling asleep playing it. With Sonic Heroes on the other hand, I can't count how many times I threw my controller as a kid in frustration.

I don't like this game. I am a Sonic fan, but this is definitely one of the lowest points in the series for me personally.

As Sonic's first 3D entry, I think the game is fine as a first attempt. It executes a lot of things well on its first attempt, those being:
- The gameplay. The level design is very top notch and thoughtful. The set pieces in the stages are fun and enjoyable to go through, and overall the entire game, despite the 6 story structure, is pretty good. Big's gameplay sucks though.
- The soundtrack. It's a cliche sure, but Sonic Adventure has a banging soundtrack, with each character having a specific theme that adheres to their character. And the stage music itself has aged amazing. Don't try to tell me Red Mountain isn't a banger.

Of course, the story itself aged like milk with its poor pacing and frankly, laughably horrible presentation. But I respect the ambition and vision they were going for with the game. Sure, it does not hold up in any shape or form, but you can tell that they wanted to go hard.

This game has a lot of nostalgia for me as well, being one of the games that ran on my awful laptop and the fact I was able to reliably make simple, yet fun mods for it. My 11-12 year old self enjoyed putting my Sonic OC recolors into the game by simply just using MS Paint.

Sonic CD is a game I have a love-hate relationship with. I like the game more than I don't though.

The concepts of travelling in time in the stage to go either the past or future are legitimately very cool, and a unique take on a 2D platformer, especially for one as old as this one. But the execution...leaves a lot to be desired.

There is practically no incentive ever to go to the future version of the stage, aside from sheer morbid curiosity, otherwise you end up wasting your time. You can only get the "true ending" of the game by either going to the past version & destroying the robot generators, or by collecting the Time Stones.

It's also because of this restriction that level design in this game ends up being more restrictive than it needs to be, which definitely takes away from the experience. They encourage you to explore through the stage, while also making the stages insanely linear and way too easy to just "hold right and win".

Despite that, the short length of the game makes it replayable and I do end up enjoying my time with it...most of the time.

Also, both the US & JP soundtracks are good and I will die on this hill with that statement.

This is, hands down, my favorite game of all-time. Is it perfect? No. It has its flaws. But this game hits every single beat that I want hit:
- The level design is superb. Both Sonic & Knuckles have unique paths they can take in the stages that can lead to not just wildly different playthroughs, but wildly different outcomes in the stages itself.
- The music is a slapper, MJ soundtrack or 1993 proto soundtrack, it doesn't matter - both are incredible.
- The gameplay is smooth. You are always in control and very rarely does the game feel cheap when you make a mistake. It does happen, yes, but less than in other games, which is surprising for a game as old as this.
- The attempts at story-telling in an early platformer are also very very well executed, giving you a proper narrative to follow and connecting each stage to one another.

I love Sonic 3 & Knuckles. It's such a fantastic game front to back that I never get tired of revisiting it. I loved it as a kid, I love it even more as an adult and never get tired of revisiting it.

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.

I genuinely think this game is a little bit overhated. While yes, I have had my moments with the game where I really hated it and I too cringe at the story, writing and acting of this game, going back to it - the game wasn't that bad.

Yes the physics model is horrendous with some cars, making fan favorites like the M3 E46 completely undriveable, but as a whole - I enjoy not just the aesthetic, but the customization and the car selection of this game.

In my opinion, 2015 is not as bad as people make it out to be. Not a game I willingly revisit unlike other games in this same series, but not one I hold begrudgingly bad feelings towards.

This game did genuinely make me rage at times though, hence the comparatively low score to the semblance of praise that I'm giving it.

This game...man, it's a game I've been wanting so badly to revisit ever since I beat it in 2019 for the first time. It's such a masterful game in pretty much every sense of the word.

- A beautiful story with many twists and unexpected turns, making you question who you are fighting for truly as the game goes on.
- A wonderful gameplay loop that never overstays its welcome and continuously introduces new ideas and gimmicks to keep everything interesting.
- A shockingly beautiful soundtrack that can, does and will make you cry, I don't care who you are.

If you've ever been on the fence with this game, I promise you it's worth it. Play NieR: Automata. You genuinely, honestly won't regret a second of it.

This is, in my opinion, one of the last good spin-offs the Neptunia series has seen before everything really went downhill. It's the last Neptunia spin-off until the release of Sisters vs. Sisters that takes place in (or heavily implies it) the canonical world of the Neptunia series.

The gameplay in this game is a very huge improvement to what was seen in MegaTagmension. Stages are a lot more open than they were in the previous game, as well as the combat itself being far, far more fluid and fast-paced. I think with this they finally nailed on the head the type of hack & slash spin-off Neptunia games should be.

I've dabbled with the game a few times since completing it all the way back in 2018 and have found myself enjoying the game, but it's not something I'd actively revisit.

Get it if you're a Neptunia fan looking for a true callback to the "good old days", if you will.

Oh and don't bother with the online play. Not worth it.

(repost of my review on Steam. you can read the original review here: https://steamcommunity.com/id/huuishuu/recommended/460120)

Neptunia VII is what I consider to be the peak of the series. The peak before it all went horribly downhill. Neptunia VII, in a lot of ways, feels like a huge step forward for the series. Both in terms of story and the general game design. It mostly learned from the mistakes Victory made and iterated on what worked well.

I try to keep my reviews as spoiler-free as possible, so I'll do my best not to soil everything when it comes to describing the game's story. It's split up into 3 distinctive arcs, and what I think is both the highlight and lowlight of the game is definitely the second arc, dubbed the Hyper Dimension arc. I love the core concept of having 4 distinct stories that you choose to participate in whatever order you wish, tying them all together with a final 5th story (kinda like the Sonic Adventure games if you want something to compare to), that part of the game also has some of the cringiest writing in the series, at least personally. But ignoring the Hyper Dimension arc's shortcomings, the entire story as a whole feels way less bloated and far more engaging, such as when you are in the Zero Dimension arc and you are drip-fed mysterious information about newcomer Uzume Tennouboshi which ends up pulling your interest further in. And it builds upon that foundation very well. That's not to say the game doesn't have that signature Neptunia comedy™, on the contrary - there's plenty of it, and unlike future spinoff installments - it's still at a moderately tolerable level (aka it's not stupidly obnoxious like in VIIR). A decent upside to this game's story is that it's not alienating to newcomers at all, despite it being a sequel to Victory. The writers made it accessible to people who have never even played a Neptunia game, something its remake - VIIR - falls flat on its face on.

In terms of gameplay - it's a wonderful evolution of what worked in the previous entries (mk2 & Victory). Weapons in this game are actually more than just mere stat boosts as some of them even let you set up whole combos for extra damage. Believe it or not - that makes experimenting with different weapons interesting! As an example, a weapon could be statistically better than what you have right now, but in terms of combos - it could be set up for rushing your enemy or breaking their guard instead of outright offensive capabilities, so it could prove to be less effective. That's the kind of thing that I want because it encourages healthy experimentation and I love it!

Of course, not everything is perfect. At plenty of points in the game - the game feels very poorly balanced. Sometimes enemies are just made too strong for what you are supposed to do. Sure, it's a JRPG, meaning grinding is inherently part of the game's nature, but there are times where it's just straight up overkill. Case and point - the start of Blanc's story in the Hyper Dimension arc. I swear that part of the game was just never play-tested. You are far too low leveled to face the first boss and you're given no option to grind your level up. You really have to rely on dumb luck on that battle, and there's more where that came from.

I also personally think that the new overworld, while cute, is a step backwards from the way previous games (including Re;Birth games) did by making walking through the map far more slow and tedious, especially with random encounters on the overworld which are stupidly unnecessary and only further how slow it is to navigate from place to place in this game.

I could go on and on about this game, but you get the point. Overall, I do recommend VII as a purchase. If you've never played a Neptunia game - VII is a good starting point! It doesn't require knowledge of the previous games to jump in, and you can easily just go backwards to Re;Birth2 or something if you wanna experience the "canonical Neptunia story" from the very beginning.

I also think this version of the game is superior to VIIR in __every single way.__ The port is better and far more stable, the gameplay is better, you get multiple save slots, you have multiple endings (bad, Ascension [Normal] & Revival [True]) rather than being outright locked into 1 ending from the get-go and in a lot of areas - it just looks better despite the lower polygon count or texture resolution. If you had to choose between VII and VIIR - I'd choose VII.

(repost of my Steam review for this game with a few slight modifications. you can read the original review here: https://steamcommunity.com/id/huuishuu/recommended/105600/)

Terraria has been the kind of game I pick up, I play and obsess over it for a month or two, then put it down for a few years. It's always been that way, dating all the way back to 2013. In all fairness - I genuinely love this game and it definitely is one of those games I can confidently recommend to everyone due to its open-ended nature.

With the game's major content updates coming mostly to a wrap in the Journey's End update - Terraria has definitely cemented itself as one of my favorite games to play on PC. Even without delving into mods - there's enough content here to keep you entertained for easily hundreds of hours.

Although admittedly - the game can get a bit mindless and boring until you get into the post-post game. Sometimes you just need to be in the "mood" to play it. Point is - do you want a game you can easily enjoy by yourself but also bring along some friends for a great co-op experience? Terraria is the right game for you. Are you interested in making entire characters revolved around specific types of "builds" (gunner, melee user, summoner, magic user, etc.)? Terraria has got you covered. Do you want to explore a vast and interesting world, filled with many many unique trinkets for you to find? You guessed it - Terraria has that for you to look forward to.

It really is a must-have in my opinion.

(repost of my Steam review with slight modifications. you can read the original review here: https://steamcommunity.com/id/huuishuu/recommended/70/)

Half-Life is called one of the most revolutionary games of all-time. And for the time - it really was. It's honestly one of those games where I can't really say anything new about it that hasn't been said about it by so many people over the last 22 years of its existence.

But even if this game is older than me by a year, it's still something I have so many fond memories of just playing, hearing various rumors about and always experimenting with it. I remember back in 2009 I spent days messing about with console commands and pasting Half-Life maps into Counter-Strike and such, just to see what works and what doesn't.

All these years later, I also love to just occasionally revisit the game. Certain bits of the game aren't that fun I'll admit - Forget About Freeman & Xen are honestly boring, and in Xen's case - downright confusing, but a solid 7/8 of the entire game is fun to just breeze and play through.

Half-Life is a special game. A game that I doubt many people haven't experienced yet at this point. But if you haven't - behind the outdated GoldSrc graphics is a game filled with wondrous secrets and tons of replayability to keep making you want to come back.

(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).