Came back to this after seeing some kind of big patch/console release. Hadn't touched it in a few years and WOW. This quietly became one of the nicest and well polished arcade rhythm games I've ever played. So much style and charm in every single ounce of it. A rhythm game made by rhythm games fans for rhythm game fans. The only negative I can say is that if you aren't super into electronic music the default soundtrack doesn't offer much else, but it's a PC rhythm game and you can use spinshare for customs.

Look I'm going to be real, I actually really like the game that is here. I loved Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath, a game where you use weird, ugly little living creatures as weapons and got a bunch of power ups while taking out bounties. And that's exactly what High on Life is! The weapons are fun, the powers are fun, the maps are varied and cool.

The issue lies in, well, the whole selling point of the game. The "jokes" are annoying, unfunny, and incessant. Even after I turned all of the extraneous dialogue down I could hardly tell a difference because it's ALL THE TIME. Moving a quest forward is abysmally slow because of how much riffing they have to do.

I did laugh a bit during the time I played it, but it has nothing to do with the script. Some of the performances got a chuckle out of me, particularly a couple of Zach Hadel's deliveries. The RedLetterMedia commentary track of "Demon Wind" also got me pretty hard, and if I'm honest, the main reason I even installed the game.

I understand how stupid it sounds to say "I wish there was no Justin Roiland in the Justin Roiland video game" but I never expected to see a spiritual successor to Stranger's Wrath. I don't even know anyone else who ever played that. So all I see here is wasted potential.

I have played exactly 2 good non-Fromsoft developed soulslikes, this, and NOSE. Both of them realize what makes the formula work and takes whole-heatedly from them and aren't shy about it. Too often I feel people making a soulslike use it as a marketing point to get an audience but then none of what I would actually want from one is in the game. This was not the case in Lies of P. I don't know how else to say it, but the last couple Fromsoft titles have felt soulless to me. DS3 was "okay", Sekiro was fine but not for me, and Elden Ring was a massive disappointment. Lies of P has that soul.

I wanted a labyrinthine, brutal, fast-paced action RPG from the game that looked like legally ambiguous Bloodborne, and that's exactly what I got and then some. Everything felt right. The world, the movement, the sidequests, the gameplay loop, it was all perfect. The biggest difference came in the combat, but it wasn't necessarily a negative difference. I love the trick weapons in Bloodborne. It's my favorite iteration of combat Fromsoft has done in those games; fast, fluid, and combo centric. Lies of P does not have trick weapons (well, except for one) but it does offer it's own unique tools to play with. You're able to swap handles and blades on weapons, allowing you to use the quick, agile moveset of a dagger, for instance, but replace the normally short blade with a greatsword blade, slowing the moveset down a little, but retaining the relative agile nature the dagger while giving you much more range. Experimenting with this mechanic was a lot of fun, though I wound up using boss weapons for the majority of my playthrough. (I finished the game using the Two Dragons Sword, which honestly might be my favorite weapon in ANY Soulslike game, including Fromsoft ones.) You also get a Sekiro style robot arm with mulitple swappable abilities, though I didn't find myself using it all that much. I tried the gun arm which helped for stage play, and swapped to the grapple arm for boss fight mobility, but again, didn't really find a need to use it.

And the reason I didn't find a need to use it that often was because of what's maybe my favorite addition Lies of P added to the formula, the P Organ system, which acts as a sort of skill tree system for character progression. My least favorite part of a Souls game is how character building typically boils down to finding a weapon you like, then dumping stats into whatever it scales with the best, then dumping into stamina and HP. With the P Organ system I actively developed and evolved how I was playing the game based on what became available to me. I was happy with my Booster Glaive and dumping all my points into Technique because that's what I was used to. But when I saw some of the P Organ skills, like higher stagger when attacking from behind, or increased Fable (Lies of P's form of DS3 Weapon Arts) on perfect guard, I wanted to move into a more agile play style, swapping to lighter weapon to stay mobile and focusing on parries. I continued to adapt and change and wound up playing the game pretty differently every 8-10 hours or so. It was a lot of fun and super refreshing!

Most surprisingly of all, I didn't hate the story? Like I went in assuming the Pinocchio thing was mostly a gimmick but really loved the way they approached the subject of what makes us human and found it rather poignant at times. That being said, the story is also where most of my complaints regarding the game come in, namely, certain characters writing (pretty much just Gemini that cricket fuck) and a lot of the voicework which I found varied between subpar and outright distracting.

Oh, and slight aside that only really matters because of how bad Fromsoft has screwed up PC releases but Lies of P runs incredibly well with no configuration. Defaulted to high everything, ran at 144 with zero hitching or slowdown. I was thoroughly impressed.

I played this on Gamepass, which I normally don't like to do. I like to pay and own for games but I really thought this game was going to be bad and tried it mainly for a laugh. I absolutely plan to pick the game up on Steam later on because I want to 100% this. I want to play through with tons of builds, I want to see every outcome of every sidequest, see every ending, see every secret. And if the teaser at the end of the game ever comes to fruition I will be playing it day 1.

I feel like Void Strangers releasing earlier this year really spoiled me and I'll never see puzzle games the same way going forward. I do not see why this game is getting so much praise. I don't really know how to say this without sounding like a jackass but I do not understand how this is being called the smartest and best puzzle game of the year when there are NO puzzles. I did not think about my actions ONCE. You move from point A to point B grabbing orbs and using interactables and I felt like I had no agency in the solutions; they were just right in front of me. The art and music are both top notch, creating a tremendous sense of mystery and awe which makes the tedium and banality of the gameplay only sting more. Like I guess if you just want to get blitzed and vibe and sink into the couch and see cool shit as sweeping synth pads wash over you without having to do much, you'll really have a good time? But otherwise I think it's just 3 hours better spent doing anything else.

Yeah I kept telling myself I was going to go back to this but it has been months now so I'm just gonna talk about it. I'm not saying dumbass shit like "not my final fantasy" because I think that's ignorant. People saying that should go play literally any other of the plethora of turn based rpg's that are coming out. We're in another golden age for that genre if you go looking for it (but no, you just want to play the one series you already know and then call a genre dead.)

That being said, they really flubbed the execution on this one. I feel like I was swindled. They pushed that they were including all of these accessories to make it more accessible because it was going to be so challenging and action packed (at points saying that you can ridicule your favorite streamers for using them which is just baffling and honestly offensive to me that they would even joke about that under the guise that they're accessibility features) and then deliver a character action game with a super fun move set with nothing fun to use it on!! What the hell were they thinking! None of the combat encounters are even remotely challenging or interesting and honestly put me to sleep. No incentive for being stylish or keeping combos going or scoring high and no hard mode until you complete the whole ass game!! You might say "well they aren't making Devil May Cry, they're making Final Fantasy" then why the hell was one of their main selling points the fact that they hired Ryota Suzuki as a designer?

I don't have much to say on the story, it's pretty whatever, I'm not the biggest fan of Kazutoyo Maehiro and his stories or how he treats women. The whole debacle about them not including black people and then the game being about slavery is uhhhhhh not a good look (but what do I expect from the people who continue to make Y'shtola whiter with every expansion.)

But I wasn't looking forward to this game for the story! I was looking forward to a character action game! The game looks good, music is good, there's just generally a real quality to everything which is what makes this sting so hard. If they put out a patch where I can just switch to hard mode I'll give it another go to at least see it through to the end, but right now, I'd much rather spend my time with other things.

One of the better retro royale styled games. Not as good as Tetris 99, better than Pac-man or Mario 35. F-Zero X had a battle royale mode in it anyway, the high octane, violent, boost/energy balance nature of F-Zero fits the genre great! I wish that the races kept going until 1 person was standing, though, instead of ending like a normal race. They add a bunch of obstacles anyway, why not keep amping it up! trailing 1 person on Death Wind for like, 2 and a half minutes for the win would've been super hype. Still, enjoy how they set it up and I like the customization and all of the old comic art in the UI and menus! More F-Zero please!

I was fully prepared to be a hater. Most times when people are like "they haven't made one of these games in forever so we're gonna make our own!" they kinda wind up falling completely flat on their face. Like the fanbase's idea of what makes a game special is so warped and different from what I would consider the actual game's strength. And no shade to Team Reptile, I love Lethal League, but going from a 2D pong game to a big open world 3D action/sports game seemed significantly harder to pull off.

But they did it! And they didn't just try to be Jet Set! And honestly, even though it's Jet Set aesthetically through and through, I think it's more akin gameplay wise to something like THUG! And I'm all for it!

The game oozes style, both visually and musically. Characters are animated, colors and bright, music is boppin. I have no notes honestly for what was done aesthetically. Like genuinely, the soundtrack speaks for itself. If I tried listing every song I loved I would just be copy-pasting the whole track listing. Actually no notes. Gameplay-wise, the zones are all varied and lively. New Amsterdam feels bustling with tons to do and explore. Mataan was my personal favorite zone, giving me big PSO Pioneer 2 vibes. Finding all of the nooks and crannies and getting to all the unlocks and bomb spots is a blast and I plan to go back and 100% everything. I especially love that all of the tags have artists directly credited in game. Graffiti is art!!

Game isn't perfect, though, and honestly, if I didn't prefer style over substance I think I would've been more severe in my criticism. The cutscenes are.... off. I don't know how else to describe it. They're janky and don't really flow and the music isn't really synched up as much as there's just music playing during them. They seem silent too, with little voice acting aside from grunts and barks, and now that I'm thinking about it, little to no sound effects? That might be the biggest issue. Actions in cutscenes feel like they lack weight. Camera cuts can be weird at points, but, again, small team going to a much more complex game than they've previously made so honestly I gave that a pass. It can be very jarring though.

My other biggest complaint is with combat in all forms. Cops in Jet Set Radio were invincible. You could spray them to get them off your tail long enough to bomb a spot that you needed or you could opt to just get to a location where they couldn't follow to shake them for a bit longer. Sure, some of the vehicles you could spray to put out of commission, but outside of the final boss, you could also just let them exist and avoid them. I like this use of cops more because it adds a lot to the routing you're doing mid-stage about how you can swerve and avoid and evade to get to where you need. (Maybe this was different in Future, I know Bomb Rush is more based on that than the original, but with Future being trapped on the original Xbox I haven't played it since I got rid of mine in, what, 17-ish years?) Obviously with Jet Set Radio being stage based however, that methodology wouldn't work for Bomb Rush, and for the normal cops, I didn't have a problem with them. I did as I would do in Jet Set and just skate and climb around them, doing a sick combo wallriding past where they could hit me and I felt cool. My issues arise with the multiple sections of forced combat. Beat up these cops, beat up these snipers, beat up this tank-bot, etc. I just don't think the game feels good when it comes to combat. It just feels like button mashing hoping you'll hit your enemy that you can't lock on to so when you do a sweep and they go flying you spend like 20 seconds trying to find them. It just isn't fun and not what the game excels at and I wish I wasn't forced to partake in a system that feels half-baked. The final boss was frustrating as well because for some reason they put you in a forced camera section? I don't understand the reasoning for this when you still have to swap between rails and are forced into freefall to land onto said rails that I struggled to land on because the camera it was locked to had NO sense of depth. Like I guess it was to try and show the scale of the boss? But the encounter would've been more enjoyable and just as awe-inspiring had I just been able to control the camera normally. Honestly, I probably would've even liked the fight. Instead the end of the game just leaves me with a sour taste in my mouth.

So even though I did find myself frequently going "this sucks" or "why did they do it like this" I still can't help but love the game. The parts they nailed, they NAILED. This game lives and dies by how hard it vibes, and it VIBES. If you look at any of my old reviews you'll see that strong style will ALWAYS trump substance for me and brother, Bomb Rush Cyberfunk IS style.

Wanted to come and write some thoughts about this because I've been revisiting it as an anti-anxiety game lately.

One of the greatest arcade puzzle games ever made, full stop. An absolute joy in all aspects. The style, animation, and character designs are top-notch and the soundtrack is non-stop jams. There is so much game here with different modes, daily challenges, and bonus stages. It is simple enough that you can enjoy it as a simple time waster AND deep enough that you can put a lot of time and thought into every single move and ability you take to each stage to optimize and complete all of the challenges in.

I saw some people say it doesn't really benefit from being on PC/console and I disagree. I think they made some good UI changes with the extra space and personally I dislike playing games on touch screens. Not to mention the fact that I subbed to Apple Arcade for a year solely for this game which wound up being about 60 bucks whereas the game on its own is only 20.

Look if I'm going to be honest I would say that I have a negative interest in vtubers. I don't watch them and actively avoid them. I don't know a single person in here outside of the funny dog lady and the White Woman.

But I can't deny the amount of love and passion put into a free game that honestly rivals Vampire Survivors in my eyes. So many characters, so many items and unlocks, a heap of bonus minigame stuff, great art, solid music. I especially love that each character's main weapon is unique to them and they have special unique skills as well. That solves the biggest issue I have with Vampire Survivors where the characters didn't really matter and I all built them the same way, with whatever was OP. Here I have to think more and play to their individual strengths.

I downloaded this on a whim and played it for 8 hours straight and will probably put at least another 30 in, if not more.