Nov 2021
After quite a bit of hiatus, we finally get the third installment to the Darksiders franchise and welcome a new Horse Rider protagonist. Fury, she’s as badass as she is battle hungry. In hopes to take over as lead horsemen she is tasked with taking down the Seven Deadly Sins. Dialogue and story are decent, but do not particularly bring anything exciting or amazing to the series.
This game does once again reinvent the gameplay of the series now adopting a heavily inspired souls like experience. Enemies die and give you souls, you have limited healing items per life, dying loses all of your unspent souls, and dodging is imperative. Fury, unlike her brothers, does not focus on raw strength (War) or magic (Death), but rather elemental attack damage and counter strikes. This is what makes dodging so important to hit these critical counter strikes. The game does get rid of the mmo weapon loot system that was brought in on 2 and instead you handle different weapons depending on the element you use. Each weapon not only brings in a new moveset, abilities, and statistics, but they are used to further traverse the overworld. Being able to seamlessly swap between these weapons makes for a fluid and enjoyable combat experience. Boss Battles are the best part of this game, despite one or two maybe poorly designed and/or annoying fights.
Overall, an enjoyable experience lead by a badass protagonist. The only major falters is that it donned an overly popular genre, some minorly annoying mechanics, and maybe some iffy plot points.
Lewd? Not quite, but Queen Fury is killing it.
Recommend? Yes, great combat and boss battles secure this as a great installment to the series.
Point and Click adventure that appears to be a prequel to a larger series. In a dystopian future you must try to ascend to the utopia floating above. Unfortunately, a mysterious force seems to try and stop you at every return and every solution you solve, you somehow create several more problems. The animations are pretty nice, but the game itself is alright and tends to follow the usual format of most point and click adventures with weird solutions to most problems. I found the main character pretty unlikable. Kind of a mess up that expects too much for how little he does along with how many times he screws up.
Lewd? Suggestive themes, but nothing more.
Recommend? Nice animations, okay humor and story. I’d more give this a solid maybe. It may benefit those who have played the rest of the series.
Platformer with a funky vibe. This game was pretty weird, but decent. Some of the mechanics for each world were hit and miss. The music is probably the game’s strongest point, but it also requires tastes that reflect 90’s/2000’s club music with huge beats and weird moans displaced throughout.
Lewd? The music
Recommend? I’d give this another maybe, to kind of rating. The game itself is alright and nothing special and the music can be an acquired taste.
Lewdie JRPG with corruption and machine translation text. The game doesn’t hold anything particularly unique out of all of the other games that exist exactly like this.
Lewd? Most definitely.
Recommend? Not really. Lacking story, generic combat, and repeating scenes.
A classic puzzle platformer. Your goal is to escape your job as it plans to turn you and your species into their next food product. Platform and voice are your tools to escape your pursuers and free your people. The dark scenery and twisted creature designs drew me in, but that wasn’t enough to keep my interest. In fact, a major mechanic absolutely turned me off to this entirely. That mechanic is the speech power. Not only does it feel out of place, but the voice of your character is far higher and more annoying than I would like. The game also seems to suffer just from being in an older game in that it’s incredibly challenging and requires frame perfect jumps and timing.
Lewd? Nope
Recommend? Not really, it really just doesn’t feel as if it aged well. Maybe the New N’ Tasty remake fairs better.
The first sonic game to embrace the 3D world and has me convinced that it is for worst. Despite being a remaster the game is still a bit of a mess and cannot compensate for poor controls and clunky gameplay. In the already well-established Sonic universe, you can play as several different characters in their own campaigns, slowly combining all of their stories to create a greater plot and unlocking the final chapter after their completion. Each character has their own abilities and style of play. This means you can enjoy playing some campaigns while absolutely abhorring others (Looking at you Big the Cat). The impact of each character is also severely underwhelming while you could probably cut some characters out entirely. The most jarring thing is that when you return to a scene as another character, the dialogue completely changes. It’s a weird design choice as these characters are supposed to intertwine and complete the narrative. The game however does hold a pretty decent soundtrack for the most part.
Playthroughs from Best to worst: Tails, Knuckles, Sonic, Gamma, Amy, and Big the Cat at the lowest possible bottom there could possibly be.
Lewd? Nope
Recommend? No, I’m absolutely convinced the only positive reviews of this game are from nostalgia. It really just was not for me.
As the sequel and quite the talked about game, I found myself once again… disappointed. Visually the game looks much better, however it still handles poorly and fails to deliver on gameplay. We once again get to play multiple characters, this time playing three hero characters and three evil characters. As cool of a concept this is, the evil characters mimic the gameplay and mechanics of their hero counterpart. Even worse is that they changed some characters for the worst such as giving Tails a clunky mecha. Not only was this a terrible transition, but I was able to get to areas I was not supposed to reach without finding an upgrade to be able to proceed, soft locking myself.
Best to worst campaigns: Shadow, Sonic, Rogue, Knuckles, Eggman, and Tails.
Lewd? Nope
Recommend? No, this game was a frustrating mess and an omen to all future Sonic 3D games.
The past meets the present as Sonic finds himself in a void, must rescue his friends, and even meets himself from a generation past. The game essentially serves as a collection of notable sonic levels for you to play through with a thin layer of story to drive the progression. Each world does a few things. It allows you to play the base level of that world in the modern 3D fashion, and a 2D level that is semi equivalent (again all based on past levels of the series). Apart from the levels themselves, there are challenge points that have you go through the base level with certain requirements (find items, speedrun, etc.) Another addition is a skill system. Buying and equipping skills can create an easier time or more unique experiences.
The game performs alright for the most part. 2D levels being pretty solid, while 3D being somewhat inconsistent. There were several levels I noticed performance and mechanical issues. The boss battles are also all pretty subpar if not just annoying. Of course, the music is great and features either a remaster of classic songs or remixes of them.
Lewd? Nope
Recommend? It’s pretty decent and probably one of the better 3D games. However, it’s alright at best and didn’t particularly grab my interest.
Turn-based tactics that requires both placement and the ability to aim your shots. Some sort of steam punk post-apocalyptic world where you control captain of a small ship and slowly grow your crew as you take on bounties and galaxy wide missions. Each crew member you pick up has their own class and thus their own stats and skills that can benefit you and your team. The gameplay is incredibly fleshed out and offers interesting mechanics including the ability to bounce bullets.
Lewd? Nope
Recommend? Very much yes. Easily my favorite game of the month.
The 4th entry in the series and not much has changed. If you enjoyed the previous games and gameplay, you’ll likely enjoy this. Level design is fine. However, the skill system feels much underpowered. Most of the skills didn’t even seem all that useful or worth buying other than getting potentially decent later skills.
Lewd? Nope
Recommend? Kind of, particularly for those who enjoyed the previous games and want more.
A truly sad state of a game that has barely reached an alpha state in development. Sounds don’t work correctly, there are little to no actions, it is easy to fall through the map and there is no easy way to reset or revert your save.
Recommend? Nope, burn it, destroy it, whatever you have to do to rid yourself of this waste of space.
Beaten -> Complete Finished Nightmare mode (Night 6) which ends up being the final night. Not terribly hard, but if you fail to get in the rhythm of the night you’ll be in trouble.
Yet another mediocre game by Dharker Studios. You pilot a space vessel with a crew waking up from cryo sleep that may not necessarily opted in to be a part of this crew. You must gain their trust to avoid mutual destruction as there is no turning back. This is a pretty standard VN where you make choices and can romance several characters. Each character has several endings along with solo endings in case you are not in the romance way. Simply the story isn’t interesting enough and any spice they add to this sci fi adventure is low balled in and hardly used.
Lewd? Yes, several events and endings can lead to intimate moments with your crew.
Recommend? No, frankly this game was just so uninteresting I began to skim the dialogue rather than read it thoroughly.
I just couldn’t get into this game. It is way to free form and so little direction. The goal of the game is to continue your prison routines while figuring a way to get out. There is a tutorial, but it gives you the idea that there will be objectives listed for you throughout.
November was a pretty busy month for you! It sounds like a lot of the games were only average, but at least you can cross them off your list. I always wondered about The Escapists. It looks intriguing, but something about the game seemed off to me. Glad I never bought it, thanks for the review.
SteamWorld Heist sounds like fun, I’ll have to look into the game!
It certainly was busy. Unfortunately, not every month can be a winner. As you say, they are at least out of the way.
I know I have already said it, but I really do recommend SteamWorld Heist. I haven’t checked out the relating SteamWorld games, but they seem to be of a different genre. Hope my reviews helped!