It's absolutely wild to go from the simple, multiplayer focused SRB2 Kart to this mechanics-rich racer with a metric ton of singleplayer content. Like, holy shit, they actually made a mascot racing game with more mechanics than Sonic Riders. I think I'm in love!

Don't get me wrong, the mandatory, hour-long tutorial is very unwelcoming and the fact that you need to unlock online play and mods via singleplayer content is absolutely baffling. Even so, there's so much to enjoy here and it's all presented with so much charm and style. It's going to take a good amount of time to fully digest all the mechanics and unlock all the secrets, and I think that's really refreshing for a racing game, much less a (free fan-made) kart racer.

Did not expect a Megaman fangame featuring a joke-character (a poorly-drawn and incredibly verbose Zero) to have such love and craftmanship put into it. Typically competitions, this entry in Make A Good Mega Man Level decides to only include a curated list of levels instead of including every entry, trash or treasure. So to say: The quality of most levels (many of which tribute other games such as Wario Land, Castlevania, and Pepsiman!) is absolutely stellar!

What makes many of these levels great is Zero's amazing moveset. Rather than a traditional Megaman X/Zero scheme, this game offers some twists. Zero still has his dash, but now he can maintain his altitude and dash mid-air as well as slam himself to the ground, giving him a speed boost as he lands. It is so enjoyable to master and get the most out of, and the levels are often challenging enough to justify it. Even with 70+ levels, I never got tired of dashing and slashing!


(Most of the soundtrack is borrowed, but there are some incredible original tracks here and there https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMwJ7E4JSu8&list=PLutTSzCYxvrsApipkfZEzWuwCkIlnY3US&index=1&t=40s&ab_channel=MakeaGoodMegaManLevel )

I just adore 3rd gen Monster Hunter. The music, art direction, and monsters are just peak MH. Portable 3rd is absolutely gorgeous for a psp game and plays wonderfully, especially with tweaks via the excellent ppsspp emulator (seriously, that thing is almost Dolphin-tier). As much as I love Sunbreaks complex, high-speed combat, I do find a lot of comfort in this game's simplicity. It also has the coolest Hunting Horn ever: the Darkest Coffin!
Oh yeah, and this game has the best farm in the whole series. Just the right amount of convenience to avoid feeling like a chore. It just feels like home, and I can say that about the whole game.

Okay, this game has (deservedly) been talked about to death. Everyone gushes about the satisfying gameplay, fascinating worldbuilding and themes, art style, blah, blah, blah....
Not enough people talk about how fucking funny this game is.
A mimic chest that stands up and tornado kicks your ass? Amazing! Getting knocked off a building by a comically sized arrow? Exquisite!! Being forced to run past dozens of disembodied dragon asses marinating in lava. Fucking Hilarious!!! Don't get me started on those basilisks. Prank of the century right there courtesy of Fromsoft!
10/10 I love this fucking game.

There are like 3 different ways to throw dynamite in this game and they are all the most satisfying uses of dynamite in gaming ever.

One of the best games to come out of the recent "Boomer Shooter" revival and it was made by a single person. God damn!
This game genuinely does everything right. It has a distinct and interesting art style that remains readable despite how "crispy" everything looks. The music and soundscape elevates every scene of the game, both in hyping the player up during shootouts and setting spooky atmosphere for the horror segments.

Gameplay is incredibly satisfying as well, with most weapons having a use until the games end (the hatchet falls off, but at least it's fun to use). Levels tend to have open areas around their big combat segments, giving the player all kinds of approaches to the combat.

I also adored how the enemies were handled here as well. Many of the cultists are hitscans, but they all have some sort of tell or pattern that make it really apparent when they are about to shoot and when they are safe to approach. It's all wonderfully engaging without ever feeling unfair.

The most glaring flaw would have to be the boss fights, however. I think the bosses on their own are fine though! It's the addition of cultists during them makes them feel really...messy? Annoying? Other than that, I guess I wish that weapons sounded better, but that's just nitpicking. Again, one person made this, it's okay if the shotgun is only mildly punchy.

Absolutely recommend this title though. My only caution is to not go in expecting Blood 2 or anything like that. It really is unique enough to stand on its own and should be experienced without any expectations. I've seen some disingenuous comparisons between the Blood and Cultic, which is a shame. Yes, Cultic definitely takes inspiration from Blood, but it still finds its own style in combat and level design. There is plenty of room for 2 dynamite-tossing shooters, and frankly I want more. I can't wait for chapter 2...

The hardest part of this game is convincing your friends that this is one of the best co-op experiences in gaming despite how it looks.

Every level is pure chaos and every class (except ranger) always finds a time to shine. The sheer amount of toys everyone gets in this game leads to constant experimentation and constant disaster, it is glorious. Often times your own teammates are more dangerous than you alien foes, and that is not to say the enemies in this game are push overs. They will absolutely take advantage of any mishaps on your part! Without proper teamwork/strategizing, fights in this game get extremely messy and the line between success and failure can be crossed in seconds. This isn't a mindless game like it may look like (you will die), but playing this game mindlessly leads to some amazing slapstick. Nothing is more hilarious and devastating than an air raider wiping his own team seconds before victory due to an unannounced carpet bombing.

That's me btw, I'm the air raider. Spent 90% of my time with this game as this class and I can absolutely recommend the game to anyone just for the sake of experiencing this class. Even as a support class, I've beaten the game solo with him. He just gets such a wide variety of gadgets and vehicles that any challenge can be worked around with enough careful planning. Not to mention, he has some of the most powerful tools in the game via a variety of airstrikes and giant mechs.

The game's story and writing is also very fun. Every character is an idiot, but the cheesiness of their lines and the great performance by the VAs makes the story endlessly entertaining. The stakes of the story are always sky-high and really adds to the 1-4 man army fantasy the game is going for.

Overall, this is my favorite co-op game and one I enjoy immensely even in single player. It looks like a mess, it even plays like a mess, but it is one of the most masterfully crafted messes in gaming and one more people need to experience and fall in love with.

Completely unrelated: why is the online lobby theme so good? In a menu most people spent less than a minute on? They did this in 4.1 too, the longest and most catchy song in the game is put in the absolute worst spot. It pisses me off.

This game was magical before my imagination fucking shriveled up and died. I miss when cave noises freaked me out or when I didn't know what aggro'd endermen.

But it's still great! A very simple world filled with plenty of tools for the player to mess around with, surrounded with some amazing sound design (seriously, you could almost guess what/where a player is doing at any moment by sound alone). If you're able to be satisfied with making your own goals, or have enough friends to build a (often dysfunctional) settlement, then Minecraft can provide endless enjoyment.

I just enjoy farming and fishing. It's just so comfy to fish in the middle of nowhere, watching blocky animals wandering their blocky world. Very solitary, almost melancholic, but I love it.

(Also the modding community is easily top 5. There is a ridiculously large modpack for any flavor of playstyle! Would really recommend Rustic Waters II for a lonely, underwater survival experience.)

I don't know what depresses me more: the ending or the fate of this franchise. Klonoa deserved so much better...

This game is criminally adorable, especially in its first incarnation. I'm already an absolute sucker for 2D sprites in 3D backgrounds, but the character design and how everything sounds just melts me.
It definitely helps that the gameplay's good! It's mostly standard platforming presented wonderfully as the level wraps around itself through the 2.5D style. It even gets a little puzzly thanks to how Klonoa needs to carry around enemies to use his double jump. It's engaging enough to keep you entertained and gives you plenty of room to just appreciate the lovely world.
What will really stick with you, however, is the surprisingly emotional story? It all starts innocently enough, but constantly escalates and builds towards one the most poignant endings in any game I've ever played. It is genuinely heart wrenching.
I could absolutely recommend this to anyone, but mainly the ps1 version. The fully 3D graphics and voice-acting (at least in the Wii version) just don't do the game justice imo. Obviously a subjective thing and, really, any version is worth experiencing at least once!

Sometimes I just open a completed save data of this game and make the coolest looking mech I can.

I love first gen Armored core, and this is probably my fav entry in the whole series. The dark and grungy ps1 graphics do wonders in depicting the dismal future this game takes place in and the entry of Kota Hoshino as composer made way for one of my favorite videogame soundtracks.

One aspect this game has over the other 1st gens is the arsenal. All the powerful toys from the previous games are present and really easy to get your hands on, making experimentation and finding your dream mech even more fun than it already was. I've spent ungodly amounts of time in the garage and I can safety say I was engaged the whole time.

The arena itself is a lovely and stress-free place to put your walking war-crimes to the test. It's always been my favorite aspect of the series thanks in large part to the low stakes and quirky opponents. Seriously, I love reading their little bios so much and trying to see how much their fighting style matches their description. It's so oddly arcade-like, almost? Kinda like someone put a mecha fighting game in what was originally a pretty grounded mech simulator.

Also the battlegrounds in the arena are really cool. I especially love the wild-west one where the ac's start facing away from each other. And, of course, the music is fantastic.

While the first AC game focused on world building, this one focuses on a personal, revenge-thriller story. Lots of mystery and twists that I didn't expect but thoroughly enjoyed. It's still a very unique approach to story for this series. Also, 9-ball is such a cool villain!

My only gripe with this game is that I was still hungering for more missions outside the arena, especially since the ones in this game are especially strong for first gen Armored Core. Such a shame this entry has the lowest amount of them, but maybe wanting more is an empty complaint. For what it is, I heartily recommend this to anyone wanting a full and soulful mech experience. Good luck, Raven.

"I love being an Assassin!" I say, pelting the island of my target with cannon fire.


I'm not a huge fan of AC, let's just get that out of the way. But I do love pirates, so I was sold on this premise immediately. Fortunately, this game gives possibly the best pirate experience in gaming. The main thing holding it back is the series it comes from.

This is still very much an ubisoft open world and is annoyingly dotted with an excess of collectables and activities. Pursuing everything will surely burn a player out and cause resentment. I absolutely recommend only seriously pursuing templar keys, as they at least have missions and stories that are worth experiencing. I make it a point every playthrough to turn my back on the tutorial islands collectibles and sail away. If completionism is important to you, be cautious with this one.

Contrary to what you may hear, this game is also very much an AC game. That's honestly fine, the stealth in this game isn't very deep but it does have enough gadgets to stay interesting. What isn't fine is the shear amount of tailing missions in this game! They are everywhere! I let out an audible "Jesus fucking Christ" upon being told I had to stealthily tail a FUCKING GALLEON on my boat. I was absolutely flabbergasted. And then there are the modern day sections, which just strangle the pacing.

With that said, if you can look past these aspects, you will find a wonderful pirate adventure underneath. Watching your vessel bounce with the (visually great) waves as your crew sings sea shanties is absolutely whimsical and avoids the usual fatigue open-world travel typically bring. You move fast enough that making a bee-line towards your destination doesn't take much time at all. It's even faster to get distracted and start naval battles (or ending ones that have already started without you).

Thankfully, ship combat is very satisfying and has plenty of options to remain fresh throughout this games runtime. Ramming, mortars, a few flavors of cannon fire, and the reliable swivel cannon are all useful and fun tools. Enemy ships and forts also have and utilize these tools, and they are pretty aggressive with them. There's enough depth and challenge to ship combat to keep it from ever getting boring.

(I don't know where to put this, but the fact that you can bring your ship on assassination missions is fucking hilarious and I love that I can just mortar an entire island instead of being stealthy.)

Sword fighting is sadly a tad under baked. It can look and play really stylish, but that requires a lot more work from the player than the optimal strategy of killing anyone from a counter. Most enemies can die from two button presses, ruining any reason to experiment and find all the cool kill animations. Targeting enemies can also be rather buggy and make sword fighting a clumsy mess. Messy combat is very pirate, but also very annoying.

Lastly, the story is pleasant enough, with our protagonist meeting charming approximations of histories best sea dogs while on his desperate journey of chasing a treasure most don't believe in. Characters are well acted and fun to watch, but the overall journey is a tad long and awkwardly paced. Ending still hit me pretty hard though.

It is sad that we may never see a pirate game like this again, especially given how horrific Skull and Bones development has been. Even despite its foundations as an AC game holding it back, this is an absolutely lovely pirate adventure worth experiencing.