Not much to say because it is indeed a prototype, but the final version of SUPERHOT is, in my opinion, one of the best indie games of all time, and its really cool to see where it all started. Pretty much everything from this prototype was improved. The polygonal aesthetic really serves the final game well, the physics feel better, the setting feels better, and while interesting its a lot cooler that there is no actual voicelines in the final SUPERHOT game.

That being said, there are actually a few touches in this prototype that are charming and are missing from the final game, like the existence of bullet casings that can be heard hitting the floor and (in my opinion) more interesting visuals for the pistol.

That being said, this was a great start for what became a great game. The biggest improvement though has to be the fact that in the final game, they put more space between "SUPER" and "HOT". I shudder to imagine a world where they didn't make that change in the final game!

Bro hell nahw ong what the skibidi is this?? BLUD ichiban really think he's on the team! I have now officially spoiled the entire game with that statement, there's nothing else to look forward to. Rare sighting of the guy in actual beat'em up gameplay. Oh, would you look at that, those bozos are back. We haven't seen this Shindo guy in a hot minute, I might have forg- OH NO HE'S THE SWORDSPAMMER HAVE MERCY!! Come on Majima, do something silly, you about uppity as hell with that moveset you borrowed from Kiryu. That's the make or break part that could have saved this glorified hack's reputation.

It's cool to see some set pieces from the famous Like A Dragon series in glorified pixel art. Makes me think of famous quotes from the Yakuza series "wow, christmas! Just a week away! I am so happy with this information!" or so it goes. Maybe Ichiban doesn't feel so out of place kicking Nishiki's derrière, the whole concept is already transporting you into another Sega franchise. I must admit, it feels weird to wield a knife that doesn't break before one person's skull like in Yakuza. You guys gotta give the short runtime some rest man, it may be only 3 stages long and you're fighting the same type of ennemies throughout with a few generic bosses,

Oh, the first two bosses were caught lacking and took their first hit? Death penalty!! You can combo them both to death with the first hit of the combo string, repeated ad nauseam. Quite an unfortunate affair, but if you don't realise it for the first two fights, it means you can bypass safely to the final boss. Is it genius design in disguise? We'll never know if it was intentional. Imagine going to the hospital like this dawg I guess I'm now the supervillain. Makes me... extremely based. It's not like the moveset was particularly impressive to begin with, it's like AI art, if stuff is stolen it's not interesting! Nothing connects anyways. It's the game's fault, not mine.

This post was fact-checked by true Staminan XX addicts. Repost if you're a true XXX. This Staminan thing is so cool i wish stamina was real.

Kirby, my good man, it was bound to happen. At last the sucker becomes the suckee. Why hasn't the yarn market crashed in 2010? Utterly incomprehensible. Are you really engaging in art just to forget it the next day and move to new ventures?... that aside, what an utterly sweet game. It's so sweet it needs a diabetes warning label. No seriously, it's really sweet no cap. Tears of joy were forming as I was confronted by the absolute peak that is a childlike sense of wonder over simply moving around in a yarn setting as Kirby. He started the D&D session putting all his points into charisma. Good-Feel crafted us a plethora of worlds as charming as the next, where the law is dictated by whether your world has good gimmicks or not. Good thing is... they do!! Good stimulation is a win in my books.

This game got dawged on for not having le scary game overs ooooooo and I say NO! I WANNA BE A SINGULAR BRAINCELL ORGANISM and that's that, I've found my people they're made of yarn. The levels are interesting, with good gimmicks and good design. That is all I ask!! So yeah, a game can be good without a "go back to checkpoint and retrace your steps to learn from your mistakes" ahh arc. Like, at least, I can bear with most bosses being terrible. They just drag on for far too long... dragon deez nuts!! Bitches will go the most roundabout way to introduce artificial difficulty 😭 is ok. I'm yarn! The weakness of flesh does not apply to me. On the other hand, neither does it to enemies. There's some type of way i'm feelin when I see waddle dees being erased from this plane of existence as they cower in fear on the corner of a screen. What the fuck did Good-Feel mean by this??

I love how the villain was chilling until Kirby stole his lunch money AND his lunch. He got caught lacking though. Either way, the power he gave my mans was used responsibility. Going full dababy "Lesgooooo" is not enough, his intrusive thoughts came out to enjoy the ride. There are a lot of transformations, dare I say every level on the last stretch you gotta pull out your best Toyota impression. It's what the hoes want! It regularly changes from sideways Wii remote to directly pointing... but did you know Wii emulation was surprisingly easy? Yeah. I aimed sideways with a DualShock 5 and i LOVED it. I accidentally nuked all of China midway through the ride... or i became baby shark (a dolphin) 🥺 these are all a wee bit interesting, simple concepts, but offered a new perspective into the physics. Some of them controlled better than regular ahh yarn form ngl, the whip wouldn't connect a lot of times ngl but maybe we'll blame Sony and their DualShock.

Would Meta Knight have saved Dream Land if he wasn't homophobic? Good ass question, mostly the ass part. What is with him appearing for a few seconds to get checked out by the big villain like he's a Youtube ad being met with the full force of Adblock. Welp. I think the rest of what I have to say is about good things, really. The narration is nice wit it, interacting with the yarn environment never fails to bring a smile to my gloomy doomy face... Ah yes, putting stickers in your apartment. That's a first! You collect jewels while playing, be careful not to get hit because you'll get your jewels mugged! If that happens too much, Kirby will destroy YOUR family jewels! Can't have the genes of a noob passing on. I say that, but the apartment stuff is rudimentary. They did that better in Pong. PONG! IT DOESN'T HAVE APARTMENTS!! I heard it does get better if you invest ressources and sink time into it... omg just like a job guys, unemployment is no more...

I had a great time with Kirby once again. So did my kids. I don't have kids insert punchline

Umurangi generation is a simple game. It's basically an FPS where you take photos of the world around you in different locations. Places like a rooftop and a military base with a simple goal. Take photos. The game gives you a couple objectives but allows you to take photos at your will otherwise, with the only penalty being a ten minute timer that you can ignore entirely. So off you go, roaming the environments and taking in the scenery. It starts off nice, but very quickly you learn about how the world has been fucked, and what's happening is something everyone will just have to accept. And at the start, it's amazing. The levels are open ended and you can achieve your objectives in multiple ways from multiple angles, encouraging you to explore the levels and take in the scenery and more of the story, with some really good satire on things like police, neoliberalism, youtube rantsonas, and life in the late 10s-2020 in general. One thing I will say is that the objectives can be kind of vague at times. The second level's 'sarcastic writing' part probably being the worst, but it also has the issue of asking you to take a photo of an animal, only for it to be a picture of the animal instead. But besides that, it's cool to experience a story only told through setting and no dialogue. Highly recommend if it goes on sale as the asking price is admittedly a bit much.

In an interview with IGN in 2020 Senior Producer Fleur Marty commented about Gotham Knights, Warner Brother's newest Batman game that it's, and I quote:

"is very much not designed as a game-as-service."

Now I don't blame him for this comment, it's part of his job when doing PR rounds to help sell the product. I can only imagine with the negative outlook the title was receiving that the Eye of Sauron at Warner Brothers was watching intently. The thing is the reason I don't believe him is to give credit to the talented people that work on WB Montreal as I refuse to believe they would design such an awful system if it wasn't a live service game initially that was repurposed. Now I like the premise of it, playing as the sidekick's when Batman is gone and the launch trailer is superb at really emphasizing that feeling. I like the idea of having the game co-op and having upgradeable RPG mechanics but the way it's implemented is just dreadful.

So it's an open world game similar to it's predecessors where Gotham City is the playground. When you are let loose to explore there are basic repetitive crimes on the map where you can scan to find them then interrogate criminals to find pre meditated crimes and it's utterly pointless. Simply finding them organically exploring would have been better and more interesting. When stopping crimes sometimes there are chests that have resources in them or blueprints for new gear you can make. The resources are just various shades of colours with huge numbers that are never explained. Playing with a friend to tell them I'd found "some green" which I already had 100,000 of just means nothing and is extremely unexciting. I had random unexplained resources coming out of my ears, blueprints for weapons and armour I'd never use equally spilling out of my bat belt pouch. To compound matters further creating one of these items you can do on the fly but you can't equip it until you return to the Belfry which the game makes you do constantly. It just seems to want to break it's own flow all the time with these "not designed as live service" mechanics.

The game generally is a bit of a rough state in various areas. The movement around the city will have you feel constantly stuck on objects like perches and lampposts that Batgirl seems to glue to with the worlds strongest adhesive like she'd made a lifelong commitment she refuses to break. Bless her. Additionally there are constant little things like the lack of a proper jump being only contextual leaving questions if it will actually work, running into other players or walls kills all momentum and you freeze for no reason, a choppy frame rate and playing online co-op auto stops my headset working in private chat forcing me to mute and unmute again in mid conversation for just no reason. All small things, nothing stopping the game being unplayable but they can get frustrating over time.

The thing is if you strip those mechanics out and look past the niggling technical issues there is actually the foundation of a good game here. When playing specific story missions and it's focused on the plot and unique locations it's really good. I like the characters and narrative, there are some touching scenes and funny moments. There is the framework of a great game here just held back by an obviously difficult development and initial design pivot regardless of what Fleur Marty may have been stating on his PR rounds. My friend and I did have fun playing it regardless and certainly don't regret it. Riding through Gotham on a bat-cycle launching into the air to land on an unsuspecting criminal and doing a finisher with a brutal kick to the jaw is really satisfying. I also loved playing as Batgirl and wanted more of that ever since the Arkham Knight - A Matter of Family DLC. Whilst it just doesn't reach that level of quality it was still fun, just extremely flawed.

Worth a try if you're curious as it's constantly on sale, hard one to recommend but it's not as bad as some people make out I feel.

+ Story premise is really good.
+ I like the characters and story beats.
+ I like the presentation though it's not as dense and gothic as it's predecessors.

- Upgrade and open world systems are just awful, clearly was designed as a live service game that pivoted in development but the damage is there.
- Combat and movement isn't smooth enough.
- Some minor bugs and frame rate issues.