I was not expecting to love this as much as I did. It's not perfect for sure, but what it did right was more than enough to push it to 5 stars for me!

The combat felt THE best I've experienced in a soulslike outside of Fromsoft, even surpassing Dark Souls 2 or Lies of P for me. Aggro Crab just gets it somehow! My only gripe with the combat is just that the game got a little bit too easy towards the end. I think this is because you can unlock so many powerups that you get to a point where you can just mow enemies down without much trouble. I fought the final boss with full upgrades and took almost no damage (I didn't use assist mode a single time except to get the gun achievement post game). I would've loved to see a NG+ mode or boss rush to address this or just better scaling at least.

The platforming and movement were an absolute joy. Rolling around in one of the many incredibly creative shells and using the grappling hook had a great sense of speed. Sure some platforming sections could be janky but it never bothered me to the point of frustration. I wasn't even expecting the platforming going in so the level of quality it's at was a pleasant surprise. It also sounds like the team is hard at work on fixing bugs as well. Speaking of bugs, most of the ones I experienced just had to do with me getting launched after using certain moves. This also didn't happen often enough to frustrate me either.

The story is the other part that was a huge surprise. I was fully expecting the story to just be goofy crab shenanigans and there's for sure a lot of crab/ocean related humor that was mostly just fine and sometimes fell flat, but the main character actually goes through a lot of meaningful growth, the story gets pretty dark and serious, and it even had me on the verge of tears a few times. It wasn't a life changing story by any means, but it felt way more epic and meaningful than I could've anticipated.

The game also has a lot of references to other games which were kind of fun to discover though it felt like there were a little too many references at times. Now and then the attempts at humor even went a bit too far imo. Still, it was a great experience.

HIGHLY recommend this game to anyone who enjoys soulslike games or is looking for a challenge/different experience. I have heard about more bugs on other platforms so it could be worth waiting a while for more bug fixes. I'm feeling pretty strongly that this'll be my GOTY this year.

I think it's a neat idea and I had fun kicking around with it but the interface could have been made a bit more user friendly. It's also way too easy to just get locked into a loop, which kinda killed my buzz for exploring. I wound up using the map explore feature to access some of the harder to reach paths and the story was fun enough to make up for it.

Knowing that the comic itself was created for a physical medium kinda puts it in context- they were working with a limited amount of space, which explains why some of the routes feel so short and obtuse. Am interested in playing the other game that they made though so I'll chalk it up as a win.

- Mom, mom! Can I have RHYTHM HEAVEN™?
- We have RHYTHM HEAVEN™ at home, dear.

Set in the surreal landscapes of the dreams of a young man who, even in his sleep, cannot escape the trappings of modern life, Melatonin is a rhythm game that takes mundane, momentaneous actions of our day-to-day, like the swiping of a credit card, or swinging of a pendulum, sets them to a beat and turns them into a rhythm game.

The game is rendered in a cartoon style with soft pastel colors, which match its low-fi, low energy audio design. As enticing as this presentation is at first, it's at the core of the issues with Melatonin that ultimately turn it into a deeply disappointing experience. The game does not let go of this chill aesthetic to its detriment, resulting into multiple issues with the gameplay. Lack of effective cues within the minigames is the most important one: the sounds that are meant to guide the player are low-energy and hard to make out, like the almost hum-like whirring of a printer, echoes of thunder in the distance, a ding sound that's easily drowned out... all of them far too timid, too reserved.

The contrast is evident when the game is placed side by side with its (obvious) inspiration Rhythm Heaven, as in that game, cues lean on the side of loud and energetic: animal noises, clapping, verbal commands.. even the more artificial prompts are loud clanks, screeches and the like, all of them unmistakable for anything else. The sound design is so intense, in fact, that some cues are committed to memory forever. Anyone who played Rhythm Heaven can probably hear these:

And buh buh buh TAP TAP TAP!
JAB, JAB, JAB, GOGOGO!
Wubbadubbadubbadub, is that true?! EH!
Two flipper rolls!

Sure, not all Rhythm Heaven minigames are perfect, but most Melatonin ones veer on the side of bad due to a widespread unintuitiveness and lack of clarity. The game has to rely on a visual indicator during practice to explain each minigame, and sometimes, the cues are so obtuse, even that doesn't help much. Time is an example where not even the game can explain how the minigame is supposed to work; Money and Stress reuse sound cues for different inputs, forcing reliance on visuals only; Work and Dating take it a step further and change the sounds midway to throw the player off...

Melatonin even commits a cardinal sin for a rhythm game in that, in some levels, such as Shopping and Exercise, the stage track itself doesn't match the intended inputs at all, meaning it's far easier to play with the BGM volume set to 0 -- a depressing way to play a rhythm game, where vibing to the music ought to be a pillar of the experience. On that note, the remixes between nights are another way in which the game performs disfavorably: the basic gist is taken straight from RH, with multiple minigames interspersed with each other as a unique song plays, but Melatonin does not visually change anything to make the remix feel new, and while the tracks featured are unique, they're neither memorable nor exciting, resulting in remixes that lack the cathartic release one yearns for after practicing multiple minigames in a row.

Among those hardcore rhythm gamers desperate for a fix, I suppose some might see value in Melatonin. I, however, and I'm left confused at the glowing reviews it received: despite playing the game to the end, I can't remember a single song, a single motif nor a single sound cue from Melatonin's many underwhelming levels. The experience was about as exciting as its main character's life, and all I could think of as the credits rolled was that we all could really use a new Rhythm Heaven.

Thanks to the terrible first impression the first demo left I had some pretty low expectations for this game, so at least I wasn’t too disappointed.

Bravely Default II makes a ton of gameplay changes from the previous two games, a lot of which were executed pretty poorly. I remember being turned off by the new turn order. In the previous games you set all of your party members’ actions at once, while here you set them all individually. It’s fine and works well for the most part, but it also makes the speed stat way more important than I wish it was. I wanted to make some of my characters into specific classes but they just became too slow to be as effective. Not to mention I literally softlocked a battle at one point using an ability that prevents all characters from taking damage until the character who used the ability gets another turn, and the character I had use it was unbelievably slow and kept getting her turn delayed by the boss I was fighting. This went on for 10 minutes until I just closed the game.

The jobs feel more limited and underwhelming than usual. Black Mage learns spells individually instead of in pairs, like the developers were too lazy to come up with unique abilities and attacks for every level up for that job. Imagine how exciting it is getting Thundaga as the final attack for the class when in previous games you unlocked it alongside other spells and BEFORE the max level of that job. Hellblade also suffers from this, half of that job’s level ups just get you the same attack but with a different element, which is boring and makes grinding not as fun as it used to be.

The game in general feels restrictive. There are still cool things you can do with the job system, but it gets bogged down by the sheer amount of counters that enemies and bosses have. They can counter you for attacking, using healing magic, defaulting etc. Not to mention bosses typically have multiple of these, it gets ridiculous. One boss even has “Counter Any Ability” where he does a party wide attack when you do......well, anything. Why would I ever wanna use that boss’s elemental weakness against them if they counter that weakness? There’s also the terrible and worthless weight system which limits how much equipment your characters can carry. It adds literally nothing to the game, all it does is make you feel more limited than you already are.

I know people will say “oh but they have to put restrictions on you to make the game harder!”. You could make broken strategies in the previous games if you tried hard, but that was part of the fun. In my previous playthrough of Bravely Second I literally just grinded at the end to unlock cool abilities to make my characters stronger even though it was completely unnecessary to do so. Sure, it made the final boss a cakewalk, but that’s what was so rewarding about it. And plus I still had to play carefully around the super boss. In this game however bosses really like throwing a wrench into my plans with their cheap counters. Yes, I still came up with some cool strategies, but I had to take them in a much slower pace to ensure that the boss doesn’t have like 3 BP by time I’m done unloading on them, or kill all of my party members through counterattacks. It’s boring and not fun.

Also yeah the story kinda blows too. The main cast is good, aside from Seth who’s the most bland protagonist to ever exist, but there are a lot of problems with the story. Some things go unexplained, one major character is completely forgotten about with no resolution whatsoever, and the climax is a bit unsatisfying. Also the game goes on for longer than it should, not as bad as the first game in that regard, but still.

I kinda hate to see a series I love so much reduced to this. It’s simply not as fun and there are so many downgrades here that I don’t understand how the developers thought it was okay. It doesn’t serve as a very good sequel and especially not as a replacement for Bravely Second. Definitely the worst sequel I’ve ever played, and one of the worst games I've ever played in general. You have to actively try to make a game this bad.

Against my introverted self's better judgment, a week or so ago I went to a dinner party hosted by a good friend. I arrived a little late, and by the time I walked in, everyone was crowded around the TV playing Puyo Puyo against each other. "Yo Iyellatcloud!" someone calls out. "Have you played Puyo Puyo before?"

"No," I say. "But I've played Mean Bean Machine..."

"I don't know what that is. But you should try playing Puyo!" A controller is thrust into my hand, and 30 seconds later I've hit a 4-hit combo and won. (and then everybody clapped...) Everyone takes turns trying to challenge me, and the closest I come to losing is when the most experienced Puyo player dumps junk all over half my playing area, but I manage to calmly clear it all and pull off the comeback.

"I don't get it!" she says. "How are you kicking everyone's ass if you've never played Puyo before?"
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At this point I'd like to take a detour to rank the opponents in Dr Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine in ascending order of punchability.

- Grounder (Stage 8): My favorite badnik from AoStH because of his Inspector Gadget powers, it's kinda hard to dislike his goofy voice. He even cries when he loses, the poor thing.
- Arms (Stage 1): The mandatory easy first opponent, he looks like a chill fella; I'd have a beer with him.
- Humpty (Stage 3): Another slightly adorable little doof.
- Coconuts (Stage 4): His "winning" face is kinda annoying, he might rank higher on this list if not for the fact that you won't see it much because his AI is a joke.
- Sir Ffuzzy-Logik (Stage 10): Not particularly likeable, not particularly punchable; kinda generic.
- Frankly (Stage 2): Very annoying and punchable "winning" face... and it only gets worse from here.
- Davy Sprocket (Stage 5): Frankly v2.0. Never trust anyone who smiles that much.
- Spike (Stage 9): Augh, what a snot nose. He looks like the stereotypical fat bratty kid that bullies the protagonist in every children's book/movie.
- Dr Robotnik (Stage 13): The big man himself. Not quite S-tier levels of annoying, but when he starts winning his moustache takes on a life of its own and it gets really distracting flipping up and down. His "HUAHUAHUAHUA" when you lose against him is worth some extra points on its own.
- Dynamight (Stage 7) - The most shit-eating "winning" face on this list so far.
- Dragon Breath (Stage 11) - Now we're entering the S-tier of punchability. This prick looks more like a pig than a dragon, and his "winning" face looks... perverted. He looks like he's ogling at girl dragonpigs while he's beating you at Puyo and it's utterly infuriating.
- Scratch (Stage 12) - "I'm winning this one by fair means or fowl." How apt that his entire thing is chicken-related puns because this guy is a gigantic cock. Puts on an extremely skeevy smirk when he's in the lead - real "you can't touch me, do you know who my dad is?" vibes here. Also, he has teeth. WHY DOES A CHICKEN HAVE TEETH
- Skweel (Stage 6) - The champion, nay, Grand Master of Punchability. This damn cylindrical purple pig on wheels already has the most aggravating smile, but when he's in the lead he starts swinging back and forth like a giant purple dick. Can you imagine trying to focus on the falling-block puzzle with this self-satisfied pig face is flopping back and forth in your peripheral vision?
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Ahem, back to the story.

"I keep winning," I tell my friend, "Because you honed your skills against cutesy anime characters, and I honed mine against a giant swinging purple dildo." Well, I didn't say that because it would have led to more questions than answers, but that just added to my mystique.

Mean Bean Machine is essentially nothing more than a Puyo Puyo reskin, but through its wonderfully expressive and smug smarmy character designs it manages to be a far better teacher than Puyo Puyo, by harnessing the power of hatred. Back when I was in middle school and before I could buy alcohol, there was nothing more addictive than finally wiping the bloody smirk off each opponent's face, and I trained tirelessly to that end. It's been many years since I last touched Mean Bean Machine, but I can still beat most people at Puyo Puyo, and a quick playthrough has shown that I can still beat Easy and Normal modes within 1-3 credits. The principles of planning ahead and setting up good combo strings have been seared into my subconscious by the sweaty pigdragon perv.

Thank you, Dr Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine, for giving me an extremely niche life skill and briefly making me a celebrity. All it cost me was some longstanding unresolved anger issues.