(this is a repost of my review on Steam with some slight modifications. you can read the original review here: https://steamcommunity.com/id/huuishuu/recommended/417860/)

I really love Emily is Away. While the internet time period the game emulates is a bit earlier than what I experienced, the vibe this game oozes is brimming with personality. I used Windows XP for years up until 2015 I believe, and the way this game emulates not only the aesthetic but the entire classic IM vibe is something I'm really just able to vibe with.

It deals with the story of love, has some happy moments and some really dramatic moments. All of that depends on what choices you make during your path. I did multiple playthroughs and each time I got a different result due to the different things I chose to say to Emily. The references to each specific time period the game takes place in were also something that reminded me of my early childhood, particularly what my brother used to do as he was the one who actually grew up in this time period. Perhaps I'll get him to play it to see what he thinks.

I also didn't mention the plethora of Easter Eggs here too. They were decently fun, especially the VA-11 Hall-A one, I thought that one was pretty fun.

Should you give this game a shot? Definitely. It's one of the most wonderful experiences on Steam and it's __free__!

(this is a repost of my Steam review with some slight modifications. you can read the original review here: https://steamcommunity.com/id/huuishuu/recommended/546050/)

I am torn. I've wanted Puyo Puyo Tetris for an insanely long time, mainly because I just wanted a way to play Tetris on PC and this was the only game on Steam that's available to fulfill that need. That's the main reason I've wanted this. Puyo Puyo be damned. But with this...you're getting two games in one. I guess that's the whole point with what the game's called.

But why am I torn? I wanna mention a few things. The production values for something like this are fantastic. There is a full blown adventure mode serving to present a little story mode with a whole cast of characters. I'm not all too familiar with them though, seeing as this is my first entry in the Puyo Puyo franchise(?), but the story is lighthearted and doesn't seek to accomplish much aside from having a reason to combine Puyo Puyo and Tetris into one game. I love the art style and the voice acting. The campaign itself for me ranges from "wow this is really easy" to "oh god I have no idea what I'm doing please help". But that's not a bad thing - people familiar with one game have a good platform to learn and understand a new game in a very casual environment, as the AI often enough isn't too hard on you and treats you as a newbie for a good majority of it. Some may see it as needless handholding, I see it as not overwhelming people who might not be familiar with one or the other (or both).

I also enjoy the fun & quirky game modes, Big Bang was an absolute blast to play and going on a massive win streak there against the AI is super satisfying. And the accessibility for new players is great, Puyo Puyo or Tetris - the game does a great job at introducing players to the core mechanics of each. My only gripe with this though is how there are no maps or tutorials to specifically practice certain techniques. For example, I want to learn how to T-Spin but I find it really difficult to manage setting up T-Spin combos and just end up making a bigger problem than necessary. Some practice maps where everything is already set-up for T-Spinning would've been amazing and would've definitely helped ease myself into the mechanics of the game, specifically timing. The closest the game gets to that is a few challenges during Big Bang if you choose Tetris, but you're never given enough time to complete them before it begins tallying up the results and decides the victor of that wave.

Now here's the thing I don't particularly enjoy - the online mode. I've heard of the numerous connection problems people point out but I always thought to myself that it can't be that bad, but sure enough - it's bad. There were multiple occasions when I was playing against someone and the game just freezes with a connection error. A win is added to my profile and I gain a bunch of ranks. It doesn't feel like I've won anything. That, coupled with the fact matchmaking does NOT take into account people's skill levels means you are going to have a VERY miserable time playing online-versus mode. Seriously, as a very low-skill, low-tier Tetris player, I can't last even 10 seconds with some of these people, leading me to get frustrated and leave. Online is not at all newbie friendly, as every person in the online mode will do anything and everything to win. I tried telling them to "go easy on me" but people always ignore those greetings messages. I tried seeing if there were any newbie free-play lobbies for me to have a more comfortable online experience, but it seems like the only thing anyone ever plays is the matchmaking, so online is a complete no-go if you are at all a low-level Tetris player. Don't even bother if you don't know the ins and outs of either Puyo Puyo or Tetris, you will quite literally get absolutely demolished.

Do I recommend this? If you're only interested in an online Tetris or Puyo Puyo, no. Jstris is a better & free alternative in your browser, so play that if you want Tetris with multiplayer. As for Puyo Puyo multiplayer, I can't give you any pointers seeing as this is my first Puyo Puyo, Mean Bean Machine not withstanding. If you want a Tetris game on PC - sure. If you want a Puyo Puyo & Tetris combo game with a story mode that incorporates both while introducing unique twists - yes.

I don't regret my purchase but I only see this game as a single player only game unfortunately. I wish the online community was a little more easy-going towards newer players.

(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.

(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.

(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.

(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).

(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 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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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, 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.