LOVED this game.

The leitmotif is wonderful. Have had it stuck in my head since I started playing and now still after. Various variations pop in randomly. I'm humming along.

Beautiful expressive platforming. You are pretty quickly doing some wild stuff. It's really good at unlocking your platformer potential for you. I don't have to look up how to double jump off Cappy to get to secrets, the wild shit is just baked in and gradually taught. And yeah you can still do the wild shit for secrets because it's a platformer. As it should be.

Every key species link story moment is absurd. Resounding, thoughtful, intriguing. Feels like a culmination of years of itch style storytelling in games.

Really cool.

Easy to see this as a young guys homage to the Internet culture he grew up with, and the complicated feelings those permenately embed in one's psyche. We get that made manifest in the wacked out visuals, distortions of photography made to move via digital effects. The writing is flavor text, but reveals anxiety about climate change, the 1% ruining the world for their own short term gain, and the comedy all this chaos generates.

This almost works as a music video for a lot of great music too. All those times you picture a lil video to a song you love, this guy made that real. One should put live death grips concert footage in their game.

Also why does the second top review here say: "but there's a lot of depth and value here if you're willing to look beyond the dithered pixel art and electronic music surface"? I have many quibbles with this, but what does it even mean? Isn't that a lot of the game, it is extremely deliberate and gives most of the game it's affect?? Why would you need to look beyond it, and why are visuals and music a "surface" to games? What happens when we gaze at that very surface?

More proof that people should like my far superior reviews.

Another game that started out high for me and quickly dropped and dropped in my opinion. Man, they make games too long.

First off, I think this is really good for what it is. I also don't think I personally like this style of action game, more on that below. I mostly don't get why people complain about it. There's a couple silly obtuse things like buying the guard and dodge, but it's still a fairly straightforward button masher (on normal).

I don't think the overhead combat is as fun as a Bayonetta style. I also don't think the color indicator style of combat is good at all. It lacks expressivity. When using the guard you have to learn what sortve colors and moves (I think?) will actually be guardable. And then certain enemies can only be attacked with certain of your weapon types. That's not good gameplay imo. It's still cookie cutter, the designers are still telling you the only action you can take, there's no creativity.

Leading into my next point and why I gradually just couldn't bare to load this game up anymore. There is A LOT of combat. I literally would see the combat initiate and start exhaling in frustration, until I realized that's the whole game of course and decided to abandon the thing. But it's almost comical, there starts to be two guys to take down of every guy youve already seen, the same combat arena has multiple spawns. I mean it's just too much combat. Your attacks never get stronger so you never go through health bars quicker. Why did they make the bosses health bars so long? It's almost funny, maybe the jokes on me? You see so many different colors. And losing battery makes things slower, but not more interesting.

Overall, besides combats, I really like the vibes! The shiny character portraits, the bombastic set pieces (end of chapter 1 was a highlight of everything I played), the music is silly and so is the dialogue. People are being rubes to complain about any of that stuff. Level theming is good (It does devolve a little into ice and fire generic levels it would seem - another complaint tied into length). If this was half the length I would've happily beaten it and awarded a whole star or 1.5 higher honestly!

This is really rad until it kinda falls off for me in the back third.

It setting up the stakes is very compelling. Everyone is interesting and the pace is quick. The darpa chief rocks, you get ocelot, gray wolf, psycho mantis real quick there, and the voice acting is all good! I love hearing snake go "metal gear?" "Nano machines?" I can finally watch a thorhighheels video in full appreciation, ive seen the light.

I think this falls off hard. Most of the boss fights, in trying to be cinematic, are boring and rote. You end up kinda waiting to get in the shot at the one window you can. The games too stingy with rations also. I don't know how I wouldve gotten then the rex fight without save states tbh. And the story gets kinda pointlessly bogged down in the gene shit? I understand that's a big plot point here, and I would like to see if it gets more interesting as the series goes on, but In the grand scope of the games political concerns, this one just doesn't have weight, the least real world applications and concerns.

Ah, ms Metroid prime

This feels so deeply gamey and 00s. The way cutscenes are directed all silly grand quick swoops that cut to quickly, running up to an upgrade just for it to disappear, now you are trapped in a room with a mini boss. Respawning enemies and generally those bugs in the narrow halls, wall vine whip things all feel like contradictory good and bad elements. Yeah they are necessary for the gameplay to work, as you need to farm for health or missiles, and they make it so the backtracking isn't just walking, but also it's not exactly fun to deal with the same thing over and over again. Combat is kinda nothing, with the matching colors and stuff. Bosses are bullet spongy but so are you. The pirate logs are the most " I watched a lot of 80s action movies" dialogue I've ever read.

It works as a 3d translation but this just makes a bit more sense in 2d. The music goes absolutely bonkers with that 90s electronic analog synth sound. It's still fun to explore.

Really sweet melancholic game. Strong character writing. Fun to fall into a daily routine and learn about everyone. Occasionally different events pop up to break things up. Love gymnopedies 1.

Amazing work done by the translator/romhacker hilltop and team. This is immensely seamless.

It's important to note that hilltop included in the readme that this is "dedicated to the gallant people of Palestine". Especially in a conflict that has seen an unreasonably and ghastly high number of children's death, the game takes on a tragic twinge. I mean, reminders of summer vacation is probably low key tragic for a lot because it's this time to be free. For a lot, we probably didn't even appreciate it until it's long gone and summers are spent myopically working and trying not to sweat. Boku couldn't have really fully appreciated it either, as it's an appreciation we often don't realize until later. And a reminder of how lucky it was to have a summer doing nothing, having the comfort to play a leisurely game recreating this experience, the time to idle away in someone else's beautiful childhood.

I love kirby!

I could list out a bunch of reasons why this is NOT good: rote simplistic gameplay, narrow levels, exact same game as would've been made in the 90s.

But damn it all works. Im a 3d platformer whore and this ticks every box. Kirby is perfectly strong, the power ups are fun, floating makes traversal exciting. World themes are pretty solid, I liked the weird subway, snow world. There is a dark souls boss fight against meta knight. Power ups enable multiple styles of play.

The music is ok. I hate that the theme starts of the same way horrid Sinatra's New York, New York starts.

This game is very uwu millennial I went to the therapist. There is a lot of dialogue that's "I see you" "I want to help", so on and so forth. It's a good and nice story and I liked some of the characters definitely. The humor worked some times. As an "artist" on the side of other parts of my life I don't really vibe with some of the discourse around art that this game is engaged with. I don't really deal with imposter syndrome, I just know I'm mediocre, I don't really think everyone is an artist, people can do whatever they want and some have more fulfilling paths than anything artistic. Art is more chaotic and hectic, massive swarms of digression and regression without cause and effect. Sometimes I think the game kinda gets that. Most players will probably paint in screens in a chaotic haphazard way. I like the dialogue for when you paint aomething

The gameplay is a little finicky as its hard to tell planes and there is a good bit of platforming. I like the bosses a lot.

Not much here for me as I wasn't really interested in painting. That's on me. The game works great without even wanting to do that and I still filled in where I wanted.

This music is fine? Something always felt missing. The build up to climaxes never really worked or hit as hard. Songs sound a bit empty.

Ok so kinda a dumb review to backseat develop I guess but I couldn't help think bout games and their budgets during playing this. I think that this game's ambitions are hampered by what seems to be a sizable but still small team operating on a small budget. I think it's too loose and not interesting enough as much as it wants to be. I wish the game was more focused, more set pieces and grand reveals rather than finding a bunch of shit to pick up and connecting story pieces on a menu. I like what's here it's just not super engaging. Really good art and music.

Another weird thing, is this one's real hard to put down and pick back up. The last time I played it was only 3 days after playing it last, and I ended up having to run around the village for about 20 minutes to find what I was looking for just to get my bearings. I'm not good at maps anyways! And then I couldn't really piece together the ending. I knew I needed to do something in the dam, but I last saw the dam about a week before and spent another probably ~30 minutes looking for it? Anyways, I watched the ending on YouTube.

really cool game. the character portrait art is incredible.

hard to overstate the depth of this game. gameplay is slow as you move unit by unit small distances across maps. lots of resource juggling in the most minute sense. for any of your people to attack they have to have ammo on them which you need to manually get them or have nodes of a sort set up.

there is a whole level editor that can create maps as complex as the campaign. try this one out if you like starcraft/strategy in general!

I do not like Sony (western) games.

This combines two of my least favorite things, the above mentioned and marvel. I did want to see NYC in the Christmas time for Christmas irl so I went for it unfortunately.

Man I don't know how you comic book likers and marvel people do it. Oh the twist is that your high school best friend is the villain? Didn't see that coming! Where'd she get the money, time, resources, skills to build a super suit? Why aren't more people doing that? Oh the ethical dilemma of if I should blow up this shitty corporations gentrifying headquarters built by the world's shittiest man! Gripping!

How many fucking people can there be that The Underground has so many people to come try and kill spiderman! Why do those people need to talk during a fight?? "I'm gonna get you spiderman" they say. No you aren't. No you aren't because I just "killed" a whole bunch of you. Please stop. I am literally spiderman you hear about how unstoppable I am everyday on the news. I mentioned how smart and economical armored core 6's dialogue was. How everything made sense within the game world. This is the opposite. Everyone's living out their personal fantasy of taking down spiderman, or something, for some incomprehensible reason.

This whole thing is bad cookie cutter design. The basic brawling isn't fun. Maybe the fun would come in with a grading system. But there's no encouragement for expressive gameplay because you can just mash to get past anyone. And because there are so many enemies in every.single.fight you will probably just get hit anyways cause the gunmen not in your view shot at you. Where is the variation? How did you make swinging around NYC so blah. Congrats to the team for being able to build a really cool looking NYC. Can't imagine the effort and talent there. Too bad it's so wasted on a shit game. Also, these missions all have the same structure. Go here, fight some guys in a room, do the world's dumbest simplistic puzzle, oh what's that more guys to fight! Congratulations. You made a bad videogame. I don't want to play these anymore.

Alan Wake II understands the power, control, and allure of the federal bureau of investigations.

When power is wielded, it is often done through obfuscation. In chapter 6 of Wake's side of the game, you wander a few floors of a hotel. Stumbling upon evocations, Wake enters a writer's room and uses new artistic ideas to change physical surroundings and narrative before and afters. Alan Wake is in the Dark Place, a subconscious usually only glinted at in nightmares but is now our protagonist’s waking every moment. This concept is a straightforward, if writerly, flourish: dreams and nightmares are two sides of the same coin, often merging into one another. Alan Wake II attempts to determine the affect these nightmares have on the waking. Back at the hotel: Wake summons a cult, then the literal Devil, attempting to cohere a violent story of murder and death that allows you to progress through the game.

The unintended consequences of Wake's writing permeates the game. A cult or a devil murdered the star of an immersive hotel play. Who leads who isn't as relevant as yet another superfluous story to get to the ending Wake thinks he needs to write in order rescue himself. What choice is there - as the game reminds us at every turn - but to "go darker"? Another bullet needs to be shot against faceless dwellers whispering your name. You might run around the monsters with little to no impact on the various proceedings the same way a book’s exposition is lost in translation to a screen adaptation. Screams of real or fictional people crashing and burning in a subway and the attendees of a play lose their lives to a fictional story, one bent by the clacking of a time writer or twines of red string puncturing together evidence of an FBI agent’s case file.

By trying to do better, dreams are often swept aside, pushed forcefully against or otherwise ignored. As Saga Anderson, you psychically manipulate your own psyche and those around you to advance forward. In doing so Anderson ends up deeper in a nightmare of her own making: is it truth or fiction that she got a divorce, that she causally is to blame for her kid’s death, and that nothing seems to be going right in your case even as more evidence is surfaced? But more evidence reveals more loose ends and for every node on the psychic crime board, more potentials raised. Who are the people around you: Sam’s motives, Wake’s reason for rage, your daughter’s personhood, and does Alan Wake II care, or is it interested in moving towards a non-ending?

Sequel bait and verseification dampers the narrative proceedings. Instead of a satisfying ending, a post credits scene reveals an alive Alice, having faked her own suicide. She said she orchestrated the whole thing. Can we believe her? Does it matter when the plots of the next Remedy games are still drafts and notecards on a whiteboard in a meeting room? Anything can change between now and then. The world’s largest corporations use their own multiverses to supersede much of culture and dominate conversation. Admittedly, in Alan Wake II these verse connections are fun and deeply referential to the point of absurdity instead of shlocky means to a team up ending, but cracks appear to be seeping in.

Art and destiny is intertwined deeply. On Wake's first loop through Mr. Door's late night show, a book Wake did not write is revealed. Over and over again, the dual protagonists of Alan Wake 2 are reminded about the decisions they have or have not made and their fates. Wake didn't write Initiation, he wrote Return. Wake fell into a lake and the dark place, unsuccessfully honeymooning in a remote Pacific northwestern town. Wake didn't kill his wife, Scratch did. Wake successfully finished his book but one hero had to lose so Wake dies. Wake successfully finished his book but one hero has to suffer so Anderson’s daughter really is dead. What is a story but an extravagant spiral?

Through obfuscation, dreams are shrouded and nightmares are made coherent. Alan Wake II gives no straightforward answers because it has none. The dream to create and continue working has come crashing down on artistic intent, neat narratives. Keeping everything open ended makes for satisfying TikToks in the future where continuous small connections between two games can be made. The FBI, FBC, and the wider police force alongside them who populate this game wield power without checks and balances, concealing truths until they are purposefully confusing, deciding on the fly what and who is right versus wrong, what will or will not show up in the next Remedy game.

*As an overall aside that doesn't tie into the more lit crit attemptings of this review I must complain about technology and our own climate apocalypse. Remedy is real fucking annoying about "cutting edge tech". A little more than a year ago I bought a 1,200 dollar computer, marked down from 1,500 in a sale. This rinky dinky computer has a 3050 graphics card. I could not play this game natively on that very nice, very new PC. There is no reason for this. I don't give a shit about graphics or cutting edge tech. Neither should you. Our planet is burning as we continue to harvest rare earth materials while putting yesterday's rare earth materials into the trash.

I liked this a good bit! There's some really nice backgrounds and all the colors really pop! Oooo I wish I had an OLED elsewhere than my PC. or I was cool enough to pirate my Nintendo games. Anyways, I think some of the wonder seed stuff is overblown. I mean all that shit is just in other games, it's kinda fun to have it explicitly there, walking up to a wonder seed getting a little excited about what's next but overall it's some standardish stuff. We've seen synchronized singing, we've seen perspective shifts and so on. Also the surprise goes down a little with some rehashing, I think I collected 5 seed pieces a couple times. That wasn't wonderful.

Wild to have Koji kondo in a lead role, right? Nothing astounds on the music side. Its no 3d world in that aspect. In fact overall it's no 3d world.

12/30/23: I'm bumping this up to a four due to how much fun I had doing the secret world stuff and playing every level in the game. Also, the music has a lot of intricacies I noticed only on headphones. There's def stuff the TV won't communicate. Also, I forgot to mention in the original, but I do really like the level themes and overall art direction. Especially world 3 it's kinda bizarre the golden honeycomb falls? I think the colors just really pop. Also, the whole over world map almost feels like an RPG over world in a pretty successful way.