I dunno man, maybe showing a sad and dramatic pet-and-owner separation as a motivation to clear the game and then resolving it on the second level is a great example of terrible pacing.

B.ARK is like a kiddie-shmup. Like, a shmup you'd find on the back of a cereal box. It works, but it's not doing much for me and I don't want to get better at it when games like Hazelnut Hex, Blue Revolver, or any classic shmup that you could play on Fightcade exist.

I feel like the selling point of this is the 4-player multi-player, but I'm not really interested in playing this with anyone.

The first time I played Bloodborne I had an incredibly difficult time getting over the muscle memory of attacking and using items from Monster Hunter Rise.

I just beat Bloodborne in December, and figured I should give Monster Hunter Rise another shot, since I never played the Sunbreak DLC, and it has much smoother performance on PC as opposed to the Switch (like with every other game ever ported to the Switch).

Now that I have the muscle memory for Bloodborne, I am having an extremely difficult time re-learning Monster Hunter Rise.

Nobody could have seen this coming.

This is the best survivors-like I've played.

I've mentioned in a few other reviews that every single "survivors-like" is better than the original for one primary reason: the art direction. The art direction of Vampire Survivors is dogwater. The music sucks, the spritework sucks, the visual effects are obnoxious. Then you've got games like 20 Minutes 'Til Dawn kicking its ass just by sticking with a simple color palette.

The overall presentation of this thing is outstanding. Not only does the art direction of Picayune Dreams actually fucking rule (thanks ANDY LAND and co.), but the game itself doesn't make me want to fall asleep, thanks to both the ability to play the game at double-speed by pressing a button to skip the brain-off-no-thoughts-to-be-found level grinding, and the bosses.

I love the bosses.

People flip-flop between calling games of this genre "survivors-like" and "bullet-heaven", and while I think both names blow tremendous amounts of ass, there's something to note about the latter. Avoiding large swaths of slow-moving pathetic, easily-dispensable hordes of enemies feels very close to a shmup game, albeit with way less required skill. Picayune Dreams goes ahead and says "here's an actual bullet-hell boss. Have fun!" And then I do.

Plus, by having an actual plot and story beatable in under 10 hours (it took me 11), there's a tangible feeling of "okay, the game is over so you can take a shower and go outside now" missing from every other survivors-like I've played up to this point.

Here's to hoping this game signals a sharp increase in quality of Vampire Survivors bullet-fart games of its ilk, because Picayune Dreams clears.

If you like these kinds of games, play this one. And then stop. This genre sucks. This one's good though.

I remember my mom getting this game for my younger brother when he was a toddler and I always wanted to play it. My parents are convinced that it was because I just wanted to play whatever he was playing at the time.

Nah. Reader Rabbit's Toddler goes hard.

I watched a "playthrough" of it, and like most games from my childhood, it looks a lot different from how I remember it. But it's still a cute "click with the mouse and stuff happens on screen" game featuring abc's, 123's, and coloring.

You can't tell me coloring doesn't rock.

Really all I wanted to do as a five-year-old was play computer games on my parents' Windows 95 and click on stuff with a mouse, and I had very limited access to games. Magic School Bus Explores the Solar System was a banger. Zoo Explorers ruled (it was bad). Pretty sure there was some game called "Waterworks" that just flat-out refused to work. There was a demo for some Tiny Toons Adventures game that my mom hated for some reason.

Reader Rabbit's Toddler worked. My bare-minimum requirements were reached.

I'll take it.

Since Devil World got added to the Nintendo Switch NES Online, I figured I should give it another shot.

My confused first impression of it was fair, but incorrect. "Why can't I eat the dots?" Get a cross. "How do I beat the bad guys?" Get a cross and press B. I like it now, especially understanding how to actually play it. It's not bad. It's not great either, but interesting for its time. Pac-Man but more convoluted. And worse. Still alright though.

I understand why this game wasn't released in the US back in 1987, the puritans would've probably burst into flames. I, for one, will eat my communion wafers next to my fire-breath-inducing crucifix with great joy.

In 2019, my younger brother Paul tells me, "Hey brother, you should play Bloodborne. It's great, and I think you'd like it a lot." I don't play Bloodborne, for I am hopelessly addicted to Splatoon 2.

In 2020, Paul tells me, "Hey brother, you should get Bloodborne. It's $15." I don't get Bloodborne, for I am still hopelessly addicted to Splatoon 2.

In the summer of 2021, Paul tells me, "Hey brother, since you're here and you don't have anything else going on right now, you need to play Bloodborne right now. And then you should get it because it's $15. Also, I'm in a blood feud with Martyr Logarius." I try out Bloodborne, but have difficulty getting used to the controls due to Monster Hunter Rise-induced muscle memory and I keep healing myself instead of attacking. I do not get Bloodborne, despite it being $15, for I am still hopelessly addicted to Splatoon 2.

On Christmas day of 2021, after going to a local video game store, Paul gives me a neatly-wrapped video game-sized gift. I open it and see this box. Paul tells me, "Hey brother, you don't have an excuse anymore."

In 2022, Paul asks me, "Hey brother, you should play Bloodborne." I hadn't.

On Christmas day of 2022, Paul gifts me Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin. He tells me, "Hey brother, people are saying that this game is genuinely enjoyable because the combat is good, and the dialogue is so over-the-top bad that it goes full circle into hilarious. Enjoy! Also, play Bloodborne."

If my backloggd daily journals that I keep are accurate, I played Bloodborne exactly one time in 2022, in August, and then didn't try it again until May of 2023, where I also only played one day, online, with Paul.

On December 9th 2023, I boot up Bloodborne. I create a new character, and make a deliberate point of making it my "main game I am playing at the moment" until I beat it.

It is January 14th 2024, Bloodborne was an outstanding video game, and Paul is correct about Martyr Logarius.

Also, I am no longer addicted to Splatoon 2.

Me in the mid-to-late 2000's: "The King of All Cosmos is strange and unusual and he needs to be nicer to his son."

Me in 2024: "The King of All Cosmos is the only monarch I would willingly take a bullet for."

I'm taking a star away because this isn't a great remaster, especially with the pop-in/draw-distance issues making it impossible to see far away rollable things. It's still We Love Katamari though, and I'm happy that it's become more accessible than ever with the re-release.

The Royal Reverie part of the game isn't nearly good enough to warrant including it in the title, no matter how much I love The King of All Cosmos. Still, it was great playing We Love Katamari again.

I've recently developed a soft spot for PUNKCAKE Délicieux, developer and publisher of Shotgun King: the Final Checkmate, Antecrypt, and MoonPong: Tales of Epic Lunacy, after playing (and giving up on) Antecrypt in particular. I respect their consistency in releasing monthly games. They remind me of Sokpop Collective for similar reasons: small group, regular quick game release schedule, similar art direction in all of their games, and slapping ideas together to see what sticks.

After being exposed to tons of shovelware on Switch and Steam, it's nice playing these quick-idea games without feeling like I've been tricked.

I really liked playing Antecrypt, and I really liked playing MoonPong. They're both simple enough arcade-style games with interesting ideas that don't overstay their welcome. MoonPong, with its core gameplay of rotating a paddle around a circle to bounce a ball at enemies while preventing it from leaving the circle, strikes a nice balance for me between mindlessly zoning out while the moon bounces off of enemies and carefully planning where your paddle should be to prevent a game-over.

It's nice. It doesn't blow my mind or anything, but in a sea of long-term-cash-flow schemes and creative bankruptcy, I'll take "nice."

After getting a clutch goal playing as the slime girl in a funny bee costume on a team with my friends over voice chat, I've turned around a little bit on this game.

It's alright.

The emotes that are just jpegs of people's faces zoomed in are hilarious.

League of Legends soccer might not be my thing, but it's not bad.

I don't know if it's the standard for games featuring loot boxes or if I've just been incredibly lucky at avoiding this exact situation, but getting hit with a loot box before even starting the tutorial has to be some kind of record.

Hot Wheels Unleashed is a cool game in-concept, with highly-detailed (not on the Switch lmao) car models accurately reflecting the actual Hot Wheels model cars, furiously racing down a toy track complete with loop-de-loops, boosts, and off-track sections showcasing that the courses take place inside of a home. These are toys, after all.

In practice, I'm honestly too blinded by anger from the immediate loot boxes and all of the cool cars being DLC that I'm just gonna end the review highly discouraging spending money on anything ever. The one-two-punch of seeing the Mystery Machine as a playable car, and then seeing "Paid DLC" next to it isn't one I'm gonna forget.

Thankfully, I am a drunken sailor.

Like Annalynn, this is a modern arcade-style game that pulls clear inspiration from 80's-90's arcade games it its style, presentation, and gameplay.

Unlike Annalynn, I'm kinda bored playing Spy Bros.: Pipi & Bibi's DX.

It's kinda like Elevator Action, which I'm not really the biggest fan of to begin with. There's a lot of waiting for elevators to move and doors to open and wishing I was doing something else.

Not to knock Elevator Action too much, it's a fine game and if you like it you might like this. However, you might be better off just playing Elevator Action again. Either way, Spy Bros. delivered about as much as I was expecting from it. It's not bad, but I wasn't really impressed.