With roughly 9 hours logged in Have a Nice Death, I think I'm going to put this down until the 1.0 release.

The game really shines in the first couple hours. The stunning, unique visuals that got me interested on first viewing only got better as I visited different worlds, met characters, and encountered new enemies. Combat feels really good and there seems to be a large variety of weapons (both scythe weapons and spells) to spice things up. The boss fights are awesome and have multiple variations of the same fight which was great.

Sadly, as I played on, it started to get more repetitive and grindy for my taste. While there are a large variety of enemies, they're all pretty much taken out by spamming the same attacks. So getting through floors (levels) are pretty bland and feel like filler between boss fights. Being a rogue-lite, you do slowly get more advantages as you continue to play. Unlocking these were initially super satisfying (elevator to first boss, start with more health drops) but I've gotten to the point where I'm having to do several runs to get to the next unlock and I'm nowhere near progressing. I've made it to the 3rd boss two or three times and died each time and getting back there to try again takes too long (15-20 minutes) for me to enjoy and feels a little to grindy/punishing for me.

This game is full of style and has a great foundation, but faulters in a couple places to where I have a hard time enjoying it a few hours in. Hopefully some of the rough edges get smoothed out and I'll be back for the official release.

TL;DR Review

Positives
+ Sonic's control & moveset
+ Open Zone Design
+ Story (Specifically, Sonic's characterization)
+ Accessibility/Customization Options
+ Music, especially at boss fights

Negatives
- Final act pacing issues
- Unpolished at times
- Scripted moments can interfere with open zone navigation

Neutral Notes
~ Lots of pop-in, but didn't really interfere with gameplay. Got used to it personally.
~ I played on easy/medium. 100% maps, all cyberspace challenges completed. Did not collect all tokens.
~ I did not fish or upgrade my levels via the elder coco or whoever.

In Depth
While I've heard Frontiers get compared to Breath of the Wild regularly, I think Super Mario Odyssey would be a much more apt comparison. Sonic's moveset has been expanded significantly to traverse several worlds where he completes puzzles and platforming challenges to collect keys and advance beyond the next progress gate. Sounds familiar.
The zones were fun to explore and traversing the area via platforming/grinding to collect tokens/keys is a super satisfying gameplay loop. And while the open zones have a good combination of both open world exploration and platforming sequencing, I did quite often get force from one to the other unwillingly. For example, when trying to reach a ledge I'd see a spring that I'd think I could use only to find when I jump on it I get locked to a 2D view where I can no longer move toward the ledge. I'd just have to complete the 2D sequence and then find a new way. This happened too often for my taste.

What Frontiers throws into the mix is several "Cyberspace" levels that feel like a more tradition Sonic level from a Generations or Colors. As well as combat which I honestly enjoyed more than expected. The abilities gradually unlocked via the skill tree provided a lot of variety that felt great to use once I got used to how the combat functioned.

The visuals are a mixed bag. While the environments and textures of the open zones aren't outright offensive, they're unremarkable. Definitely could have used some more variety in the later zones. With 2-3 of the 5 zones having a very similar look "forest" theme, I understand why general audience jump to Frontiers looking like it's copying the BotW asthetic. The prerendered cutscenes that take place to progress the story are terrific and have some of the best moments for these characters in the series. However, the in game cutscenes where Sonic has brief moments of diaglouge with an NPC are super stiff and take me out of the story.

The story, overall, I really enjoyed. Like I said, some of these characters have their best moments here. And it was really cool to see a different side of Eggman. The final act did drudge on for me a bit. There was a great moment in the story at the end of the 4th zone that left me amped and motivated. I was ready to rip through whatever the final zone through at me. I was very surprised that the final zone was the same as the first 3 zones. Not only that, it was bigger and longer and I had another 5 hours before the real ending. I think if that final zone had been the smallest and been an accelerated/denser version of the first 3 zones, I would have loved it.

Couple smaller notes - Boss fights were pretty good. I found a couple of them to be particularly annoying, but the killer music during these encounters more than compensated for that. And then the customization in Frontiers is great. From the ability to turn on/off specific components of the HUD (personally I turned off the level display and speedometer), to straight up changing Sonic's starting speed and acceleration. Great options to have to allow newer players and/or veterans to tune the game to whatever feels best.

All in all, what an outing for the Blue Blur. I think if Sonic Team continues to iterate on this gameplay formula/design, they've create a really strong foundation with Frontiers. Hopefully nowhere to go but up!

Crypt of the Necromancer meets Doom. Clever and, in theory, sounds like a recipe for chaotic fun. And while there are some high highs, the lows drag the entire experience down significantly.

Let's start right off with the positives. First off, the soundtrack! Let's face it - if the soundtrack to this music-shooter sucked, the game would be DOA. Fortunately, it doesn't. The soundtrack is pretty decent and even has a couple standouts that have led to me looking up some of these artists other work on Spotify (the Alissa White-Gluz track being my personal favorite). But there are a couple too many songs that I forget entirely after finishing the level.

That cover the music component of this music-shooter, so how's the shooter? Eh, it's pretty alright. For a game that feels like it draws some aesthetic inspiration from Doom (I could be entirely wrong there), I wish it had taken some of the weapon variety as well. The weapons are pretty generic and I just flat out disliked 1 or 2 (demon boomerang things? Not for me), which is significant when there's only 4 real weapon options. All that said, when the game hits a groove and you hit a flow-state of killing demons all around you to the rhythm of the song, it feels amazing. If I felt that way through the entire game, easy 5 star game right there.

So where does Metal Hellsinger fall short? I weirdly didn't care for the level structure. Spawn, walk to an arena of enemies, kill a ton of enemies, walk to the next arena of enemies, repeat. Makes every level feel the same without a lot of variety. And these levels are long! Levels lasted anywhere from 15 minutes (pretty okay) to 30 minutes (not ideal) with no points where you can save you progress in the level. The fact that you're hearing the same 5 minute song repeat over and over doesn't help either. And then every level ends with the same boss battle with a bit of variation for each level. It was a fun fight the first encounter but by rematch 3 or 4 I was pretty done.

In addition to the structure issues, I had a fair amount of bugs/glitches. Mostly relating to the multiplier - either it would totally freeze and wouldn't increase or decrease as I killed enemies or it would continue to drop as I killed enemies. Maybe I misunderstood a mechanic but from what I can tell neither of these things are meant to happen.

Finally, the issue that led to me deciding to leave the game unfinished - The boss will sometimes dematerialize, leave you to kill standard enemies, and then rematerialize in a different location. In my playthrough of the 6th level, the boss dematerialized, I killed all the enemies, the boss came back to the arena... and then didn't rematerialize. It just floated there remaining as the glimmering energy thing. It even said the dialogue that it says when it comes back to fight. So 20 minutes into this level, I was stuck at an unbeatable boss that I couldn't interact with. So I think I'm done, not super interested in having to replay something I just played.

Oh man, and those shield demons suck. Like they can go to hell... again. (So sorry, thanks for reading)

Marvel's Spider-Man was the 1st game I rated 5 Stars when I started logging games on Backloggd. Top tier gameplay, story, moveset, progression, visuals; just everything was great. With Miles Morales, I was afraid that magic couldn't be captured a 2nd time. Thankfully, my worry was unwarranted.

Spider-Man: Miles Morales is fantastic. It will be my go-to example of a perfect spin-off game in the future. It uses everything that made the original great, and enhances them. Miles as a character and his relationship with his friends, family, and community are so well portrayed and executed. He carries the story so well and you can empathize with him so easily.

The new abilities are great. While the venom abilities are a great way to provide some variety in both the combat and story, the real standout to me was the camouflage. I'm not a huge fan of stealth in my action/adventure games. I'd rather just run into a group of enemies than wait around for the right opportunity. But the camouflage combined with many of the visor and suit skills allow you to both rush in while remaining stealthy! Feels really different and great to pull off.

I clearly don't have to talk about how great it feels to just swing around the city, but it just does. Miles moves and swings differently than Peter too and can incorporate his venom abilities to gain speed and height. I 100%'d everything in the city, with the expectation of getting the highest ranking on a couple of the training challenges.

What can I say, Spider-Man was amazing so I guess I shouldn't be surprised that Miles Morales was just as amazing if not better! I jumped back and forth being playing on the TV and the Steam Deck - both look and feel great to play on.

Surprised by how much I enjoyed this one. Feels like a weird comparison to make, but the puzzle/trap mechanics gave me Breath of the Wild Vibes. Just as BotW gives Link the Shiekah abilities early on and the player uses them and physics concepts to solve puzzles, Bugsnax gives you tool after tool and basically asks you to figure out how to catch different Bugsnax. And it's fun to experiment and figure out how to catch them through trial and error.

On top of that, great characters and fairly engaging (at least more than I was expecting) plot. I was not expecting to have a house that I could customize but that was a delightful surprise. The creatures themselves are adorably designed and were fun to track down and learn about. Some of the puzzles were a little vague and forced me to Google a solution, but most were right on target.

I rolled credits without doing most of the side quests, but enjoyed my time and don't think I'd spend much more time in it. Great game on Game Pass and on Steam Deck!

I've had this game on my Steam wishlist for a few months now and lucked out when it popped up on Game Pass. Really clever idea to make it feel like a massive multiplayer while not requiring concurrent players. The simple but satisfying moveset lets you pull of some fun jumps and stunts. And making your way through the trials while seeing other phantoms perish is really cool...

Unfortunately, like others have said, it gets old surprisingly fast. I've completed 3 of the temples and it already feels pretty repetitive. It lacks a lot of variety and tries to incentivize you with new whips, but they don't feel significantly different.

Great Game Pass game. Give it a shot for a fun hour or so of a clever idea. Beyond that, it will needs some new updates and/or modes to make me interested in playing again.

I really enjoyed both Limbo & Inside and was instantly intrigued by the art style and story of Somerville. However, I'm just over an hour into Somerville and it's going to be one of the rare game that I abandon. While the art style is unique and initially had me hooked, it's hard to glean what is interactive in the environment and, occasionally, just how to navigate it. The camera cutting from one location to the next instantly doesn't help this. Puzzles are unintuitive and the mechanics just haven't made a ton of sense to me. So maybe it gets better but I'm just not having fun playing this. It's fairly boring and tedious so far. Might watch a walkthrough to see where the story goes, but I'm done with the game.

As every other Entropy Centre review has stated in it's first sentence, it's impossible to talk about this game without mentioning Portal. Entropy Centre blatantly and unapologetically pulls a lot of inspiration from the Portal series. Not just in the protagonist carrying a time/space manipulation device to solve puzzles, but much more. Cubes, buttons, light bridges, laser cubes, empty scientific labs with the protags only companion being an AI - It's all here again. My question going into Entropy Centre was will it stand on its own and have it's own identity? The answer?... I mean, yeah I think so probably.

A major difference, and something I think helps Entropy Centre establish its own identity, is the story. Aria is no Chell, she talks plenty and has has her own values and motivations. Her relationship with her AI entropy device, Astra, is really nice and I enjoyed their banter at quiet moments. And while the game starts in a similar manner to Portal where Aria awakens not sure where she is or how/why she is there, unlike Portal, we quickly find out our motivation and exactly what we need to do - solve puzzles so we're able to save earth from an apocalyptical event. Dope. Takes some turns along the way that I really enjoyed. Didn't quite stick the landing in my opinion, but still excellent and I commend the developer for not just trying to do their own Chell/GLaDOS story. And there's a couple "cinematic-esque" moments that, while kind of predictable, still hit hard due to the presentation and execution.

The gameplay consists using your device that can reverse time for various objects to solve puzzle rooms/chambers(?). Between the puzzle rooms you're traveling the Entropy Centre which can involve navigating structures that are collapsing around you or very limited combat against facility robots. Nice to have that variety, but most of the time I was just waiting to get back to the puzzles. The puzzles elements themselves are very similar to Portal with a couple expectations (fan, conveyer belt). And while they work just as well as they did in Portal, it did leave me wishing Entropy Centre had gone further and tried a few more new ideas.

The difficulty of the game is hard to speak to since it's fairly subjective. Personally, I found the difficulty to ride the line between too simple and overly complicated pretty perfectly. Through the first few areas, I thought it was just too easy. But by the time I got to area 07 (there are 15), I was having to give some thought to the solution and try out different ideas. One of the late game puzzles took me 22 minutes to solve (there's a monitor after each puzzle chamber showing your time, neat touch) via trial and error and solving it was immensely satisfying. In the end, I had to look up 2 solutions that I just could not figure out. Not bad!

There are a number of tiny things that were odd exclusions. You can't crouch, which would have been helpful when trying to get a line of sight on an object I wanted to rewind. No notification of autosave. A couple times I quit the game and when I loaded back in I was further back than I expected which left me thinking I should have just kept going but I wouldn't have known how far I have to go for a save.

If this game had come out before Portal or even between Portal and Portal 2, I have no doubt it would have been a monumental release. But in as a post-Portal 2 release, I wish Entrpy Centre had gone a little further in pushing the limit. However, I thoroughly enjoyed my time with it and wouldn't hesitate to recommend it to those who enjoy the portal series or any other 1st Person puzzle games. It has enough of it's own identity and is a fun & polished experience. And while the game's ending pretty much tied everything up, an Entropy Centre 2 that adds a few new original ideas and mechanics would be an insta-buy to me.

I played Arkham Asylum and City at least 7 years ago. I had planned to play Knight when it released, but then it was plagued with performance issues and my GTX 660 didn't seem up to the job... Well I awaited Gotham Knights and upon the devastating reviews of the game, I decided it would be a good time to go back armed with a 3060 Ti and finish the trilogy!

It may be that I'm experiencing AK entirely seperate from the other 2 games/initial release drama, but this game is fantastic. Take everything I remember liking from the original games and steps it up.

The combat feels better than ever and lets you get into a killer flow. The addition of enemy types like the medic spice things up and make you prioritize some enemies over others and incites strategizing. It does start to get overwhelming as you unlock more gadgets, especially with the upgrades.

The story is great. A couple predictable twists, but generally the story it's a fun and well executed story presented very well! And they did a great job making Scarecrow way more threatening than Asylum.

I know the batmobile is a big point of contention, but I found it super fun. Easy to control both in pursuit mode and tank mode. The drone fights got a little repetitive but didn't bother me. Brought a little bullet hell into my Arkham game, which I didn't mind.

Great game and fun experience! The game is massive too, I really only did the main story so I didn't reach the true ending but did a few side quests.

While nothing about Islets instantly hooks you or blows your mind, it's a rock solid metroidvania that feels like a lot of care was poured into it.

The art style is what instantly got my attention. Very charming world and characters. The controls and movement feel really good and Iko's floatiness lets him get away with some jumps/options that are pretty fun. Bosses battles are great and provide challenge and intensity, especially the final fight. Although relative to the rest of the game, they are significantly harder. Fortunately there is always a save point immediately before the room so rematches are quick and effortless.

I really enjoyed the upgrade system - when you find an upgrade in the map, you get to choose between 3 upgrades that feel more like perks (ie fire arrows faster, pots explode on contact). There's still the ability to do what I think of as a more traditional upgrade (ie increase health, increase attack) by purchasing them from an NPC.

The islets joining together to make one cohesive map is a nice twist on the metroidvania trope. Instead of just unlocking new abilities to further your progression, you'll be provided access points to explore that were previously just edges of the islets. Whenever a new islet join I was excited to check out all the new connections.

I think if there's anywhere Islets falls short it's in the level design. Especially if you die and have to backtrack a lot of the areas you have to hike back through are very simple and just require climb, jump, climb.

While I get it's not for everyone, I found Islets to be very fun and charming. I beat it in just a few nights and kept finding myself saying "just one more upgrade" or "I'll just find the next save point". There's also a very cute & charming reward for collecting 100% of the upgrades. Just a nice cherry on top of a fun adventure.

Absolutely mind-blowing that this is a fan game. It takes everything from the original New Super Mario Bros. Wii (NSMBW) and elevates it. New powerups, new enemies, new level themes and it all comes together so well. My only wish is that it were a little more difficult, but I can't really complain since it's meant to feel similar to an official sequel and this is definitely harder than the original.

While it's still the normal NSB gameplay, this unofficial release is a stronger entry than the original NSMB Wii, in my opinion.

Pikmin meets Paper Mario (art style) meets the Mario Odyssey (level based exploration) meets... Tony Hawk Pro Skater?? (skating/grinding on the soapboard)... And it's good?!

It is amazing that a game that seems like such a mish-mash of other game genres and mechanics doesn't just avoid feeling like a rip off of each respective game, but feels both original and fun in its own right! The art style is what original pulled me in - the 3d environment with the 2d characters is such a good look. But I was surprised by just how quickly Tinykin pulled me in. The movement feels so fluid and nice to control. The gameplay and level design really encourages the "just 5 more minutes" type of gameplay to grab the next objective or get enough of whichever colored Tinykin you need. Music is great too!

Blown away by how much I enjoyed Tinykin. Give it a shot if you're at all interested, maybe it'll hook ya.

Oh and it's great on Steam Deck, the art style really seems perfect for it honestly.

Didn't quite complete, but I'm over 20 hours in and at the 4th or 5th area.

Very polished and very deep roguelite. There's so many systems at play that it's a miracle it works but it absolutely does. Different classes, abilities, armor, environments - all comes together great.

Visuals are awesome, gameplay is tight and there's a wide variety of enemies (the boss fights are especially awesome).

My biggest complaint/reason I'm not finishing it is it gets a little grindy for my tastes. Whether it making repeat runs to find the hints to make a boss weaker or getting enough cold to afford the next health/armor upgrade, you'll be sinking some hours into this to make permanent progress. Entirely valid design, but starts to get repetitive for me

This game would have been perfect on the Wii U game pad... Just sayin'.

Anyway, Chicory is clearly a great game with a lot of care poured into it. I really enjoyed the themes and story, which felt similar to Celeste but more focused on self-doubt than anxiety. While I'm personally no artist, I found the brush mechanic was super innovated and well executed. And while nothing was super difficult, the puzzle were really good and had me scratching my head a couple times! And the music was a jam, this will be a great album to add to my rotation of background music while I'm working/doing stuff. All around a delightful time worth checking out!