Correction: I originally misused "recency bias" below. It has been corrected to "the serial position effect".
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Like the first game, this has so much potential but doesn't quite fulfill its promise. I suspect that the overwhelmingly favorable response to this is due to the serial position effect. The opening is enticing, and the last 45-60 minutes are thrilling. If I were grading on creepy imagery, especially character design, this is an A+. The score is also perfectly unsettling. It's the rest that falls short. The gameplay is a mix of frequent platforming, occasional stealth, and rare action sequences. Sadly, too many are rote and rudimentary. Don't expect a challenge.

The two main protagonists are essentially faceless on purpose, but some more characterization could've helped me care about them. LN2 seemingly isn't meant to convey much of a story, just an eerie feeling, which admittedly it does extremely well.

A really great tiny indie that I'm glad got a sequel that I hope to play soon. Playing in handheld mode on the Switch isn't ideal; a good bit of visual detail gets lost. I'm strongly considering re-playing on PC to give its visuals another look.

I wish some of the controls were tighter. Moving and jumping are a bit awkward, making it easy to knock around fuel tanks inside the ship or accidentally hit buttons I didn't mean to hit. I was hoping for a little more challenge in the vehicle mechanics, but they're still engaging and not over-simplified.

This has some of the quiet charm of other side-scroller puzzle-platform indies like Limbo or Inside, but it certainly has its own appeal.

One of very few games that I've played through more than once, in this case at least 4 times now. The most recent was while reminding myself which iOS game I owned on an iPad I've long neglected. I started M11 on a whim and casually finished it that same day (admittedly, it's not terribly lengthy). The mechanics are some of my favorite ever. They allow for clever puzzle platforming with just enough entropy to be exciting without being frustrating. Only recently did I realize that it doesn't have that many reviews, and even those are just fine and not exactly glowing. I would've sworn is a bit of an indie darling. I suppose it's niche; but still, I was dismayed!

What a great package of games that I wasn't terribly interested in at their release but fell in love with nearly 20 years later. It's been long enough since I played the first two that I can't remember if either of those stood out to me, but I remember liking them about equally as the third, which I just recently finished.

I'm not much of a visual novel fan, but the writing and presentation are quirky and funny enough to make it worth reading lots of text. I do wish some of the puzzle-solving was more prevalent. I'd really love these if they made the investigations and in-court defense a tad more complex.

Such a weird game that defies expectations. I was relieved to learn early on that it's (mostly) a puzzle game. When it does introduce combat, it's often frustrating and generally detracts from its strengths as a puzzle game. I didn't mind the one mini-boss battle, though.

The art design is pretty incredible. Lots of sickeningly nightmarish imagery throughout. The narrative and levels are a bit too abstruse for my tastes, unfortunately. I did find myself walking down dead-end paths, walking in circles, and dying during combat enough that I nearly put it down. I'm definitely glad I finished, but I was relieved when I realized I was done. Maybe after enough time, I can revisit it and have a smoother experience.

A fun dungeon-crawler that unfortunately wears out its welcome before the end. The combat mechanics are solid, and I enjoyed playing around with the forms I unlocked. It will likely test your tolerance for grinding, if you want to see it to the end. There are several mini-challenges to unlock for each form, e.g., killing an enemy with a specific ability, and these give you stars that you'll need to unlock the larger main dungeons, which you'll have to complete to get to the final encounter. Some of these challenges you'll do naturally, but others require consistent form-changing and ability-reworking to make sure you're always making progress in those challenges. Unfortunately, this made the last 5+ hours of a ~20 hours game feel like a chore; I had finished all but one mini-dungeon, and I felt well-equipped with the forms I enjoyed playing, but I had to keep grinding out those challenges to get more stars.

Drinkbox's fun, colorful art style is great, and Jim Guthrie's score is solid. I appreciate their ambition, and there's a lot to like, but I think it could've been stronger had they shown some restraint with NSTW.

One of my favorites this year. I love the look: cute but not twee. The click-and-drag interface generally works well. Dragging a scenario to a box and then dragging characters, usually 1-3 per box, is intuitive. I did frequently drag a character mistakenly when trying to drag the entire box off screen to clear it. Ultimately, putting together little scenes to create a larger but still not overly complex story is really satisfying.

I really love the way the game opens up after completing the last chapter. I wish there had been more devil chapters, but I was excited to have more to do after the main game. I also got unexpectedly obsessed with getting all of the stamps. Unfortunately, the clumsy way of scrolling through chapters is cumbersome enough that I felt punished for wanting to revisit chapters to complete all challenges and stamps. Maybe this a drawback of playing on a touchscreen (I played on a phone). Still, this was one of those rare games that I couldn't help but devour over just a few days, despite a few flaws with the touch interface on a small screen. It made my infrequently used NF subscription more worthwhile than any show or movie recently.