Bangledeschler's Completion Addiction Bangledeschler’s profile
My master list and stats of game progress across all platforms HERE
Twitch: ! Screen Thieves
XBOX
PSN
June 2025
A younger me played the demo of this back on the Xbox Live Arcade and, despite having an adoration for the first game, could not justify buying this entry. It felt kind of superficial, watered down, and lacking that special flavor I had tasted when playing Alan Wake. Though I wouldn’t say it is nearly as bad as I made it sound, I’m not entirely off the mark. Sure, it has the general combat and gameplay but it’s just a bit more bare. For instance, in the original you could let your flashlight recharge and still flashlight enemies without focusing on them. For some reason that is gone. It’s not game changing by any means, but an odd choice. Dodging also often felt off where it would randomly just not work as intended. Instead of having static document pages, you now get autoscrolling cutscenes which can make it a bit more annoying to read despite Wake narrating it. What credit I can give to it is solely on the introduction of a variety of new enemies for refreshing combat. Not only do they have unique actions but even react differently to your real weapon, light. There are also some new weapons but nothing ever felt particularly outstanding.
The issues above are relatively minor but probably the worst offense is the story and content. From the jump you are thrown into what feels like the middle of a new story but without any of the context provided (and no I don’t mean anything from the first game). You’ll interact with brand new characters as if you’ve known them for years (also why were they all women?). Granted part of the story seems to suggest some things later on but I don’t think it quite justifies such a cold entry. Though the general plot device is neat, there is just so little content within the story that you might wonder if any of it really mattered or expanded upon anything. Despite that, I did enjoy the videos with a live action Mr. Scratch as it never felt we got to experience him much before this.
At the end of the day the story was an afterthought as the majority of the content is within the arcade mode. These are various maps where you have to survive wave after wave of the Taken trying to get the highest score before the sun rises. You gain score via killing enemies which also increases your score multiplier along with successful dodges.The first problem you will face is how slow the enemies trickle in. Waves don’t start until the last wave is completely done and all of the normal levels start with only a few enemies at the beginning and take a long time to get rolling. On the other hand the Nightmare variants never stop coming almost to a fault where you won’t have much time to fight back especially with the limited ammo. Be warned that even if you survive the night, your eyes likely won’t due to the blinding flashbang that is the sun. It’s light will not only burn away the remaining Taken but also your retinas as it is incandescent white that bursts on screen and stays throughout the summary. Needless to say, it’s overkill.
Recommend? What little story elements that exist are nice, but it does fail to capture the feel the series should have. Perhaps only for those who are truly invested in everything Wake.
Alone in the Dark 3
Another DosBox adventure with a Western theme. This entry sits at an awkward spot between the action focus of the 2nd game and the mystique/charm of the first. It excels at neither and it’s puzzles are by far the worst. I’ve seen more sensible solutions in your average point-and-click adventure than I have of this while being far more clumsy. So, while you are pacing around either missing the pixel to pick up an item, softlocking yourself due to missing the item entirely, or find yourself pacing around a solution that not even the greatest creatives can find… you have to suffer the music. I’m certain there is only like 3 tracks and one of them is a constant alternation between banjo and a spring to drive you insane as you fail to solve a puzzle. What’s more is I’ve had more than a few times where doing the correct solution didn’t trigger the next step. Even when you are right, the game tells you that you are wrong. There were a few neat ideas here and there, but they were VERY few and far inbetween.
Recommend? Absolutely not. Between the controls, the music, uninteresting story, terrible puzzles, and often game breaking sequences… this is a hard pass.
A surprisingly good Castlevania-like with a relatively unique portrait art style. Gameplay is relatively polished with solid combat, well designed levels with classic themes, and challenging bosses. The game can get pretty easy with how fast you level up though it may depend on how you assign your stat points.Though the portrait and scene art is fantastic, most scenes are pretty short and lack a much needed climax point as they are on fairly short loops without much progression. It’s kind of surprising in that the first scene shows a lot of potential but then most scenes feel fairly tame in comparison. Still the varying scenes are nice, but this is far better as a traditional Castlevania-like than a lewd game.
Recommend? Genuinely, yes. It’s just really solid at it’s core gameplay wise.
It’s great, but not as amazing as people make it out to be. Taking place in the self-coined “Remedy-verse” you are a newly appointed director of the FBC (Federal Bureau of Control). Your job is take control of the FBC main building “The Oldest House” from the invading hiss. The oldest house and pretty much everything in it is a paranatural phenomena and thus nothing ever stays “normal”. Armed with your service weapon and various paranatural abilities you can take down the hiss and maybe find your brother. The opening of the game, though keys you in slightly to weird ongoings, feels kind of too obscure. Genuinely took a while to understand what my character was doing here or what any of this was about. Granted that’s part of the mystery but I would have liked a little bit more of an introduction before diving into the adventure. Yet, sometime through the general premise did start to click and I was much more involved. That being said the concepts and world of Control were far more interesting than the gameplay loop itself. I found myself far more invested in the various AWEs, OOPs, and various lore explanations within it. Coming into a room and seeing an object within a containment cell made me wonder what could this object possibly be there for, what is it’s past, and what could happen to me if I were to interact with it.
Despite all the lore implications, this is where the disappointment begins to seep in like dirty water from a puddle you stepped in. The gameplay loop. Many of your interactions and side missions, as exciting as their setup implies, often just boils down to the usual arena gun fight oftentimes with little to no special effects. Maybe 10% or less follow through with some interesting setups but most of the time it is just the same recycled gameplay. With as interesting concepts as the various paranatural objects you encounter, you would think you’d find crazier and varied gameplay… but that often just isn’t the case. When you’re not taking care of these rooms of enemies you are just doing clean up duty or typical mundane game tasks. It just starts to feel like a job… which is maybe the point(?) but not a very good point if that. Don’t get me wrong, the general gameplay is nice. You shoot and do weird paranatural abilities, but it isn’t all the new or outstanding. In fact, it kind of reminds me a lot of Quantum break. It’s not a bad thing by any means, but maybe don’t rely so heavily on this for the entire game without some palette cleansing change of pace mixed in.
Remedy is fairly known for their strong narrative and world building and this game is not excluded from that. Plenty of files and story beats to expand and flesh everything out. It becomes a problem, however, when every room seems to hold 3+ files, audo recordings, tapes, etc. You’re quite literally tripping on them and having to constantly pause your game to read each and every one. It’s too much and since a lot of it is very business/federal documents they lack the same charm as say an Alan Wake narrated story page. Don’t get me wrong, I want the general lore media… but maybe at a reduced amount. At some point my eyes just glaze over and continue on with my day. That’s not a great feeling. Still, the visual media like movies/video recordings are all fantastic particularly the ones featuring Dr. Darling or the tv show the FBC made.
By far the biggest disappointment is the exploration. It’s one thing to be travelling around a mostly gray federal building. It’s another for your rewards for exploration, outside of lore documents, to be chests full of randomly generated mod gear. These mod gear drops either enhance your weapons with various stats or yourself with mostly small changes to how you use your abilities. A lot of these stats are pretty underwhelming and since its random drops there’s not much excitement in finding them. This loops back to the issue that the gameplay loop is not interesting enough to solely rely on. There’s a few standout mods I received in DLCs but I’m fairly certain both were mission rewards which makes the actual drops and finds all the more useless. Further expanding on the repetitive gameplay loop, the game introduces randomly generated challenges and alert missions for even more drops… I didn’t bother with a single one as, once again, the rewards just don’t justify the continued and over relied on gameplay loop.
AWE
AWE is one of the major DLC expansion included in Ultimate Edition. It focuses on Alan Wake, who we know is an author from his self titled game. I very much enjoyed how they tried to implement the darkness into the gameplay and even gave this section a bit of a horror edge. Since this game (along with most other Remedy Games) are all set in the same universe it is nice to read documents that fully address Alan’s existence and how the FBC explain everything that happened in Bright Falls. Though I enjoyed the general crossover, hearing more narration from Matthew Porretta, and the antagonist you face throughout… it doesn’t quite do as much as I had hoped (much like most of the side content within the game). It fell a bit short, particularly on content, and introduces no new abilities or changes to bring back to the base game.
FOUNDATION
Another major DLC that focuses on a threat from the astral plane with the Oldest House. I won’t divulge into too many details but surprisingly I liked this a bit more than AWE. Largely due to the fact that you get more abilities to play with, though they are sadly restricted to the DLC area due to how they function. Still, the new abilities are fun and the scenery is a bit more varied than the usual grayness you face with most of the game. However, maybe the one thing AWE did far better than this is that the final battle was not nearly as climactic or as strong.
Achievements Note: The game isn’t terrible difficult to complete though you may need some guides. It should be noted that some of the achievements don’t trigger until after completing the objective AND then killing an enemy in an encounter. It’s not something I completely noticed at first because I was regularly going through the game so it just seemed like the achievement was generally late. However, when trying to mop up the last few I noticed they weren’t triggering until I invested in an enemy encounter. Also, because enemy spawns are somewhat random… take care of the generated challenges as you go… and not last. You’ll thank me.
Recommend? Despite being fairly critical this is still a very solid game with a great premise and gameplay… it just could have been a little more varied and a little less drowned in documents.
Beaten during June, final achievements gained July 4th
The Black Dawn DLC
Solid DLC that expands the base content with expanding a pre-existing character's story as well as weaving the few new characters in. Each character looks great and their scenes even more so. However, since this is baked in content you'll likely have to replay through the story a few times to experience it fully. This wouldn't be so bad if the game had a dialogue skip option and so many menus didn't take a few seconds to transition. My only wish past that is for there to be more interactions with some of the new characters for more variety of scenes. Additionally, endings involving more of the characters (as well as post ending scenes) would be nice too. Last note is that these new characters have some of my favorite mastery skins of the bunch but could use some additional seasonal skins as well.
Overall, not bad for it's price to an already solid game but it is a bit of a slog to go through the story a few times just to experience it all.
-Steam Deck
What’s great about Guacamelee 2 is that it is just more Guacamelee 1. After all, once you have a great dish, why mess with the recipe? That’s not to knock any games that experiment and innovate, but sometimes it’s nice to have something familiar. Don’t get it confused though, this is a brand new adventure and there’s plenty of improvements and new additions to keep things exciting. As per usual it’s a nice mix of pop culture/gaming references, great music with dead world alternates, lucha combat, and plenty of jokes that are more than bound to hit (trust that even some made me laugh aloud). One of my favorite changes to the game is that you not only need currency to buy upgrades but require doing certain actions to get them. It just feels more organic and forces you to use each one more. Of course, the best improvement is more pollo power giving the best chicken experience out there. Possibly the only negative this game really has is that game in general (particularly the final battle) is easier. Not by a great margin and it even has some of the most difficult side content in the game, but just something to note.
Recommend? All in all, completely on par with Guacamelee 1 and that is to say they are both fantastic.
A pretty underdeveloped deckbuilder as outside of losing and restarting your journey you don’t really get that many chances to manage your deck. This is largely due to the limited number of encounters and not being able to repeat encounters (unless defeated). The combo potential also feels lacking as there isn’t much synergy between cards and often some of the enemies mechanics tend to override them anyways later in the game. In fact, some of the enemies mechanics are downright brutal and may even take some luck depending on the run you get. Scenes are pretty quality between simple animations and decent voice work. Though the scenes all focus on a forced theme, the main character is quickly won over but it’s still something to note. The overall story isn’t particularly present and more of a “getting to the next step” sort of deal. What’s really annoying is to unlock all the scenes you’ll have to lose 3 times to each encounter which means each 3 losses will require you to start the whole game over to get to the next set of scenes.
Recommend? Kinda. The gameplay is a big let down though the scene quality is pretty nice. However, I’d much more recommend the likes of X-Angels which does everything entirely better with an enjoyable gameplay loop.
Silent Hill: Homecoming
What is already a subpar entry in the series is only further brought down by performance issues and what is generally just a terrible port. We miss a lot of the nuances and mystery of what makes Silent Hill what it is. Endings are tied to a mere few and fairly obvious choices. There is very limited exploration in each location which are all pretty small and self-contained. It really lacks the mystery and feel of Silent Hill right down to a lack of identifiable music or sound design. Some of the story is pretty alright and does address some genuine conflicts a person may face, but it often feels a bit messy along with the fact that the endings are pretty abrupt.
Possibly due to your military training the game features a bit more in-depth combat than previous entries. You can now combo melee attacks and even charge a heavy attack to better take down the horrors within the fog. This comes with an issue as many bosses and enemies almost seem to exclusively take damage from melee making guns often feel less useful. Even then, melee combos can suddenly miss as the enemies seem to be get pushed out of the way by an invisible force before your final hit. This is only more infuriating when you fight enemies that seem to block every hit without some specific timing and even then it is variable. We also get a dodge mechanic that is… not great. Often times the dodge will rarely be to your benefit or instead you'll just end up blocking which does even less for your positional advantage. In many cases it is better just to get out of stance and run than it is to dodge.
What turns a subpar game into a dumpster fire? Performance. This game does everything in it's power to try and stop you from playing. It will periodically freeze either randomly or during interactions for several seconds before either resuming or crashing. Even when just booting the game up it can just sometimes crash or not run all together. Using a controller, and even with binding keys, you'll very quickly find that the game not only displays the incorrect prompt in QTEs, but seems to be inconsistent on top of that. So, if you have to mash out of a potential death, either mash everything because it won't be the same button that is displayed or even the same button it was for the previous attempt OR switch to keyboard and mouse for those sections. Visual glitches tend to be less frequent but you can sometimes see your character phase through objects, missing lighting in textures like eyes, and even have cutscenes misaligned with audio.
Recommend? What would have been a 4 or 5 out of 10 game is easily a 2/10 due to performance issues alone. Had these issues not been prominent this could have been a lukewarm recommend, but honestly just avoid at all costs.
Waifu Fighter
-Steam Deck
It’s opening graphics depicting a steam deck might make one think it works for controllers on PC… it didn’t for me. It works great on the Steam Deck, but when I tried to play it on my computer the controller just would not be recognized. Keyboard and mouse did not appear to be an option either. The premise revolves around a world where women’s bodies have advanced far past male capability and have become the strongest fighters while men became “domesticated”(?). Your goal is to enter the tournament and break the gap with your secret mountain techniques. Honestly… the premise is kind of sexist but it’s put in such a ridiculous way that I don’t think you’re supposed to take it anywhere near seriously and some of the later interactions come across as a bit more reasonable.
During fights you will take the POV of the main character and have to react to the directionals shown on screen in time depending on their mechanics. So, it plays like a more straightforward punch out. However, with the limited characters and progression it lacks a bit of variety. Furthermore later characters just adapt the mechanics of previous fighters instead of creating entirely new experiences (i.e. it made sense for one character to heal the way they do, but the character after should not have had that same ability in my opinion).
When you win fights, you not only get to progress to the next fighter, but win money as well as the first of 3 story segments for the respective fighter. Money is used to increase various stats, though some seemed to do very little, as well as buy the remaining two scenes for each character. Needless to say you are better of focusing on stats to easily farm enough money and then respect the money to buy all the scenes at once. As stated before each character gets 3 scenes. 1st and 3rd are animated while the second is purely story based. Animations are pretty decent if you can ignore some slight clipping or odd shapes and even have voice acting. Stories are pretty bare bones but the characters’ personalities are at least distinctive enough to not feel so copy and paste. Whereas each of their designs are quite diverse at the very least.
Recommend? It’s a decent enough game but does lack a bit of replay and could have used more scene variety.
Breath of Death VII
-Steam Deck
So this is the same dev who made Cthulu Saves the World and I have a distinct impression this was made before that because MAN does it feel like a downgrade. Similar to CStW, it is a fairly short RPG that prioritizes fast combat over real strategy. This game even less so. To reiterate (or just iterate if you didn’t read my other review), you control party members and after each round the enemies get 10% stronger. This means within just a few turns your party members could easily get one shot by the most basic enemies. It’s intention seems to urge you to use abilities, but with such a strength increase you are very likely to use a very select few of the multitude of spells you will gain. What’s worse is that in this you don’t even get genuine ways to regain Mana/MP. Some characters will get a lowly 5 points back after each battle, but otherwise you would have to either sleep at an Inn or go to the very rare save points. There’s not even the luxury of expensive mana potions, it’s literally just the two rest options. If this at least had the fast travel option for emergencies I could at least give it some credit but more likely than not you are just going to softlock yourself if you are not careful or just plain unlucky.
The idea of having a skeleton main player was nice and I do enjoy the that each level up you get has you choose between two choices “perk” choices even if most of the time they were pretty uninspired for most of the level ups. Unfortunately there just wasn’t much of a story, interesting characters, or even level design to win back some favor.
Recommend? No, if you were to try any of this dev’s RPG games, try Cthulu Saves the World.
A quite enjoyable SHMUP that does a lot right. Unlike a few others I have played, this has combat both in the foreground (typicall shmup gameplay) but also has you interact with enemies in the background (aoe laser targeting). This makes for a far more exciting experience as there’s actually a reason to look at the background and it’s well illustrated too. The breaker system where you can fill up your meter and unlock it for brief higher firepower is a fantastic risk/reward system while bombs are a safer secondary but usual choice. Though it might have been due to my lower difficulty it seemed pretty random on if/when I’d get the double breaker mode which requires you to fill the meter up fully during the limited breaker mode. All enemies and fights feel very fair if not incredibly challenging at times. Don’t let my playtime fool you, it can be an incredibly short game if you don’t care about Steam Cards or trying to unlock the secret final boss which requires you to beat all bosses without using a continue. Music fits very well along with the general sound design.
Recommendation? Yes, of all the SHMUPS I’ve played this month it is by far my favorite and even felt the call to continue playing to try and get that final secret boss (though I’m clearly not good enough).
Cthulhu Saves the World
-Steam Deck
Same dev as Breath of Death VII and it is a much improved but still problematic game in comparison. You play Cthulu the eldritch god stripped of his power and forced to be a good and the only way to get it back is to become a true hero. First and foremost the adventure feels a little more forefront with plenty of character interactions and present story. There is a nice variety of characters though I did end up sticking with my original 4. Each character has a better focus and Cthulu even has a neat insanity mechanic. Granted the insanity mechanic falls off hard towards the end which feels like wasted potential. Once again you get the neat level up system where you choose between two upgrades each level but these feel much more relevant with vast amounts of abilities and stat increases. That being said, the one glaring issue of BoDVII is here as well. Enemies gaining 10% power per turn is still incredibly insane and once again requires you to burn your mana like it is a fire sale. The one saving grace this time is the less turns you take in the match actually rewards you with more mana back PLUS some allies can get skills to receive a percentage of mana as well.
Recommend? It’s decent enough even though I hate the empowering mechanic and the wasted potential of the insanity status.
eXceed - Gun Bullet Children
Surprising Capcom SHMUP that isn’t particularly well executed. Backgrounds are often plain with basic repeating illustrations… if anything at all. Enemies are drip fed in making for what feels like long intervals of nothing between waves which are sometimes just 2 or 3 ships. Yet, even with so few enemies, the game suffers from FPS drops. The game struggles to run at 30 FPS which causes huge slowdown in the game, even when there’s nothing going on. Yet randomly you’ll get a momentary boost to 60 for but a few sequences. Bosses were a bit more engaging though it was often hard to tell how along in a fight you were even with what looked like a health bar. There is a story here, but the game was never translated so without solid Japanese language experience you probably won’t know what’s going on (like me). Music doesn’t particularly stand out either. The nice caveat of the game is despite it’s difficulty is that you have unlimited continues so you can easily just drown this game in your character’s blood.
Recommend? Not really, uninteresting visuals, basic combat, gods awful frames, and poor pacing along make it an easy pass. It also doesn’t help it is no longer listed on the Steam Store.
eXceed 2nd - Vampire REX
Vastly improved experience over the first and possibly my favorite of the series so far. We get translated subtitles, more engaging and well paced fights, better animations, and slightly better backgrounds though they still remain pretty generic. The key change in this is that there is a “weapon” change sytem in that you either shoot light bullets or dark bullets and the enemies also have these bullets available. The most important fact about this is that you can not take damage from the same bullet type you have equipped and in fact the same bullet type empowers you. So, if you are dark mode you can absorb dark bullets for your special but take damage from light bullets. This is a pretty fun engagement mechanic and the devs implemented it quite well.What’s more the game consistently ran at 60ish fps and didnt’ drop all that much. Difficulty seems to be a bit more modular as your rank increases the more you do without getting hit and decreases a rank for each hit you take. You also get limited continues so you’ll need to work a bit harder to get to that credits scene. Story wise, this game seems to interact with the first as a sequel but on the opposite side of the battlefield. You’ll find yourself facing several of the main characters of the first as you try to take down the church and try to appease your undead lord.
Recommend? Again, not sure if this is still listed but definitely a fun challenging experience as you have to swap bullet types on the fly between patterns of attacks.
eXceed 3rd - Jade Penetrate Black Package
Returning to a more classic formula but still with it’s own changes. Instead of bullet swapping you maintain your bullet type but you get to unlock these drone-like dragons that follow you and shoot when you do.The story seems entirely separate however as you are some sort of student in a battle competition. Plus side, there's voice acting. For what reward, I do not know other than maybe prestige. The game is definitely the more challenging of the 3 as you’ll need to carefully manage your super meter and bombs to keep you safe. Dying causes you to discard all the bombs for that life with some brief invulnerability, unless you have bomb mode acted in which case a hit will use up a bomb, though you won’t get it’s effects. I mention the bombs in this review the most because it feels like there are several scenarios where you will absolutely need them if you are not completely prepared for each encounter. Bosses especially will push you to your limits as they have many phases and some can be quite challenging to downright unfair (or just annoying). At some parts even at my best I struggled to kill most or all of the enemies on screen even with bombs.
Recommend? More or less, it is fun when it can be but the annoying and maybe challenge overkill parts can be a bit too much.
Point and Click adventure that starts off with you surviving a shipwreck and trying to find the treasure on a mysterious land. You’ll guide your polygonal character across some pre-rendered backgrounds and solve puzzles galore. Oddly enough this is probably the first point-and-click that had mostly sensible solutions though they were quite straightforward and easy for the most part. Some illustration puzzles had tiles that blended in a bit too well. One of the key mechanics has you combine items. This seems regular until you realize how many items you end up having to combine… it’s a lot… almost excessively so. Even as straightforward as it was, I had more than a few times where I just could not parse where the game wanted me to go next. The game will drag on for a bit, and there is some pretty uninteresting lore to get you by. Eventually you’ll just suddenly get the treasure and the game will kind of abruptly end. The biggest note to make is that the achievements seem to be broken, at least for the Windows version. I’ve read reports that the MAC version achievements work with no issue but I did not desire to look for a fix.
Recommend? No, it’s a pretty boring experience overall with no real gratification. Plus achievements don’t work, at least on Windows.
It’s what I can only describe as a rogue-lite SHMUP. Each run has various generated enemies and bosses along with drops or power ups. The general powerups are pretty easy to understand or figure out, but most if not all of the items have no description and you kind of have to guess as to their effects. This can be frustrating as some items will just get rid of all your shields with no apparent benefit or obscure your screen without revealing any positives. Most items just generally don’t feel worth it. The generated waves don’t feel particularly equal. Sometimes you will be on the end of a constant barrage of enemies and very quickly proceed to the next level, whereas one encounter I had drip fed 1-2 enemies at a time for 10 minutes straight with some lulls in between. Bosses can also vary quite a bit. Most are fine, but some can just end your run with one attack no matter how many shields/lives you have. Of course, like plenty of rogue-lites your first successful run only unlocks more content including new end game bosses to reveal the “true end” though you get the credits much the same.The game also features a sort of hand drawn doodle cartoon aesthetic along with a CRTV visual filter if activated which might be nice for some but doesn’t do much for me.
Recommend? Not particularly. The game isn’t particularly well implemented between it’s poorly generated waves of enemies, boss designs, or item effects.
SHMUP with an interesting twist… you can rotate your axis. This will not only change the background but how you perceive enemies and bullets. This not only lets you attack enemies that may be off screen in the background along with environmentals, but also better dodge enemy attacks. For instance a spread of enemy bullets rotated 90 degrees will turn into an easy to dodge line. This interesting mechanic can be a bit much if you are like me and forget which way you rotate or rotating too frequently causing you to drive yourself into a bullet. However, once you do get a hang of this, it can be a complete game changer. Aside from basic bullets you also have access to a fairly accessible laser that bursts through the more common bullets and a more limited overdrive shot that shoots away the special glowy bullets. Bosses are pretty enjoyable if not incredibly challenging. You at least can get hit without dying as you have a health system which can be restored by repair pick ups. That being said if you die at any point you have to start from the first stage. Visually the game is a bit conflicting. With a largely just blue aesthetic it can be kind of confusing what’s going on, though the outlines and shading helps significantly.
Recommend? Generally, yes. The rotation mechanic is both unique and fun. It can be quite challenging as I’ve dropped this game multiple times wondering if I would ever beat it, but I assure you that once you master the game you will feel quite an achievement.
Wave after wave I have seen plenty of controversy over this game between it’s visuals, design choices, and story beats/characterizations. I gotta say… it’s a bit blown out of proportion. Early on some lighting issues and early scenes do have some off looks, but otherwise the characters mostly look fine if not a little uncanny in their movements. Adapting certain characters to their situation for the most part made sense to me and even still felt relatively close to their past iterations. I do still loathe the MJ missions but that’s mostly because I’m playing a superhero game to play… a superhero not a normal human with unusual luck. The final general setup does feel a bit similar to the first game in how it reacts to the city i.e. it seems like everything needs to be this crazy city wide present threat rather than something a bit more focused. Having both Miles and Peter as playable characters is a nice surprise with their own moves and skill trees. Even more welcome was the huge variety of costumes and costume colors you could easily unlock though they are all purely aesthetic this time around.
For the most part you can expect more of the same from the past Insomniac Spider-man games. I did find that most of the missions to be a little underwhelming if not having more of a purpose to setup future content. This may not be so bad if there were DLC that would have been released but will either be a spin-off or sequel which has no known announcement or release date at this time. Thus making it feel unrewarding and kinda forgettable. All in all though, I think the story does have a solid theme and approaches it well with the villains. Kraven in particular is pretty stand out though I can only wish we got more… I may be a bit bias.
Recommend? Generally yes. Though I have never been in love with Insomniac’s Spider-man games I do still think this is yet another solid entry for the series.
May 2025
Beaten -> Completed
Decided to take a break from my backlog and commit to completing a franchise I definitely enjoy. Luckily I had taken care of the large majority in past playthroughs, so it was mostly cleanup.
DMC1
First thing to note is that for some reason this is the only game of the collection that does not support cloud saves, so I had to start from scratch. Luckily I enjoy the game enough to play through it as much as is required. Mostly just had enemy files to cleanup and if you don’t know this is fairly RNG as you need enemies to do particular moves and they can be quite stubborn to do so even with being on certain difficulties.
DMC2
Despite being the worst game of the series, the achievements for this game honestly aren’t too bad. By far the worst one is bloody palace as it can take hours to complete and needs to be done in one sitting but as brain dead as this game is you can easily macro your super character to just spam bullets while you watch something.
DMC3
Probably the hardest of the bunch as DMD can be an absolute slaughter for certain levels (looking at you chessboard) and requires you to S Rank all levels at least once. Still a fun experience and got to experiment with other playstyles that I don’t normally partake in.
Deep Space Waifu-inspired bullet hell game. If you aren’t familiar with DSW, it revolves around typical bullet hell gameplay all the while flying over a giant woman whose clothes you can shoot off (or not if you are doing Gentleman mode). Succubus-Chan best to emulate that experience but ultimately fails in just about every way. Soundtrack just isn’t interesting and there isn’t an ounce of story or descriptions. Even the scenes are hidden away in a main menu option instead of in-level. Each girl has 3 short levels per layer of clothing instead of 1 well paced level. This wouldn’t be so bad if the levels varied more, but 90% of them have nearly identical enemies and patterns. On top of that there is little effort put into balancing the bullet hell mechanic where you can easily get impossible to dodge scenarios. All of this combined with the fact that it is far too expensive for such little content or quality.
Rating: 2/10
Recommend? No, not even as a replacement for DSW.
Last month I played a game that was very inspired by classic Zelda games. This month I somehow managed to pick another game that inspires another Nintendo classic, Super Mario 64. Not only does it have all the jump/flip/dive mechanics similar to that game, but your teacher is an aged near Mario lookalike (he even does a “whoo-hoo” sound much the same). The art style leaves much to be desired as it will look like a pretty generic 3D blobby game and most levels lack particular intrigue. However, the gameplay is mostly solid and if you can master the movement you can easily find game breaking routes similar to that of SM64. Enemies can be kind of frustrating, though you’ll barely interact with most of them (I do now have a new hate for moles). Some bosses in particular feel poorly implemented and lack good interaction.
Rating: 5/10
Recommend? Kinda. I’m not particularly into SM64 so I don’t quite have the same interest but the game does play fairly well for what it is.
Weirdly wholesome VN that has you serve a Kaiju princess on an Alien planet. Your task is to conquer the planet (and your Kaiju princess’s heart) lest she destroys it. Similar to the last game, this is a light time management sim where you have to better your stats, produce troops, conquer cities, and spend time with the Princess. If you manage time well enough early on then late game gets to be a breeze. I even forgot how to change soldier types after a while and didn’t need to do so until end game. Though this is fairly lewdy, there is just something heart warming about about a being that will destroy a planet with the snap of their fingers yet punishes you with a lack of snacks for a week (or something similar). In fact, the writing and progress you make with the Tsundere princess is shockingly great. Which makes it weird that you have interactions with other characters and almost makes me wish you had a choice to be more committed to one. That being said, they somehow drop the ball on the “final” antagonist as it’s the one you don’t really encounter much with.
Rating: 10/10
Recommend? Yes, so far my favorite of these Kaiju game with best girl.
Partial SteamDeck Playthrough
Here I was minding my own business when a 100% Skyrim challenge arose. I took a day or so to contemplate, but even with a late entry I couldn’t back down from a good challenge. Lo and behold the deed has been done and I remain victorious in both in general start to end date and in hours to complete it. Luckily the game isn’t too terrible to do if you discount the usual bugs and a few potential lockouts. Basically play the game and follow the various quests, after you do all that go ahead and power level to get your Legendary Dragon. If you’re using controller, it should be noted you can’t Legendary a perk using the “Y” button equivalent as is shown. You have to use the space bar on your keyboard. It took me a while to figure out and even tried buying the Anniversary update thinking that was needed to do so… it’s not. Speaking of the Anniversary DLC, it requires you to download all of it’s content in-game which took about an hour of waiting only to realize it did nothing for my current needs. Maybe I’ll check out if any of that content is decent at a later date.
Rating: 7/10
Recommend? Probably the best way to play “vanilla” Skyrim. Otherwise, just play the original (if able) and mod to your heart’s content.
Played the demo for this back on Xbox Live Arcade and remember being off put by it. I think it only let you play the arcade mode in that so that may be why. Luckily there is a story mode in this game that has a vague Alan Wake flavor to it. Problem is, from the get go you are thrown into an ongoing story without any context of what’s happening. Characters you meet for the first time in the series act as if you’ve known them for quite some time, locations introduced without much prelude, and none of this is from the previous game either. Even with information you find out later, these initial encounters still feel very out of the loop and makes me think there was some comic or manual that was required reading (despite being a digital only game). For the most part the gameplay is much like the first complete with manuscripts (though done in a worse fashion), radio, tv, and the flashlight/gun combo. Oddly enough it misses minor mechanics like being able to flashlight without focusing. That being said, it does introduce several new enemies to vary the combat. Even after several chapters the game is VERY short in terms of story. What I did play of the arcade mode, it’s a pretty barebones score attack with small maps, not that I wanted to invest much time in them as of yet.
Rating: 5/10
Recommend? Maybe for those invested in the Alan Wake universe, despite the story having little to no effect on the series as a whole. Otherwise you can probably skip it.
Started this, I don’t know how long ago, but ended up dropping due to how much more complicated it was than previous Holy Potatoes games. Previous ones are simple management games but this plays much more similar to FTL. Since most achievements require you to 100% a level this game can be an incredible slog. This is mostly due to the incredible repetitiveness of encounters mixed with the length of the game can wear you out fast since most combat encounters often employ the same old strategy and any non combat encounters will typically be recycled. Without save scumming or reloading checkpoints, you’ll have to play the game at least twice to make various choices for achievements. Much like all Potatoes games, you will get a various gaming (and possibly other) references through each character equal to the percentage of starch in a potato. It’s pretty hit or miss but honestly the saving grace of these games though this feels weaker in this entry.
Rating 3/10
Recommend? Not really, it’s just too long and exhausting.
Bullet hell game that is related to Alltynex (I think?). Pretty fast paced and fun with the bonus of being pretty short. I’m not particularly amazing at these games so the fact that it lets you continue at the cost of your high score is very nice. The only real downside is that the screen, even when fullscreen, feels maybe too zoomed in. Other than that the game feels great and had an enjoyable experience.
Rating? 7/10
Recommend? Sure, why not.
It’s been a long time coming as I meant to play this years ago (and even years before that for the original). Yet, it was either not immediately available or pressing. Yet, between a pressing recommendation and the Okami 2 announcement I thought it was due time to see what that dog doing. Maybe due to my experience with MvC3 (and capcom affiliation) I was maybe expecting this to be more of a character action game. Color me surprised when it is largely a dungeon Zelda-like, though it is still very much a character action-lite. You’ll go dungeon by dungeon solving puzzles with recently gained abilities/brush techniques that can be used in world and in combat (though I often did not do the latter to other’s chagrin). Likely due to it’s limitations, a lot of brush techniques will often use very similar strokes with the slight difference of where it is being placed. Combat is largely small flat arenas where enemies have various counters. It’s a bit more in depth than you think but still limited. Bosses, like most Zelda/dungeon games, are very mechanic driven but mostly enjoyable regardless. Though this has the gameplay of other games, this game is stuffed full of charm between it’s unique artstyle an heavy use of Japanese mythology and folklore. Very specifically the Japanese mythological take is probably my favorite bit about this game. What really detracts this game is the incredibly slow start. The “tutorial phase” of the game is easily an hour and very little traction and then more than a few spots after that the game just kind of lets you wander trying to figure out what exactly you are supposed to do with nearly no assistance. On top of that, the game feels just a bit too long and at some point the rest feels kind of like DLC/Add-on content like they haphazardly combined two separate stories. It’s not terrible, it just feels a little.. off.
Rating: 8.5/10
Recommend? All in all an enjoyable experience and I’m very interested to see the potential of the next game with all of the modern capabilities at hand.
Rayman Legends
Steam Deck
Maybe due to some of the platformers I’ve been working on as of late, but felt like it focused on enjoyment over excessive challenge. Most maps are snack sized but flow incredibly well. Your goal is to save the Teensies hidden in each level all while scoring as many lums (currency) as possible. Though not always in plain sight, it’s pretty easy to find these with slight exploration and listening for their cries. This is all without ruining the flow of the game, for the most part. Motion for the most part feels good, though sometimes the normal walking felt slower than usual or would abruptly occur (I think maybe due to weird slopes?). Still level design feels great through most bonus modes outside of a select set of levels (that uses too much filter), race the clock, and bonus level bosses (which often require memorization rather than on the fly deduction). Past that, there is a 1v1 sports minigame and I “think” there is a minor co-op mode that lets a 2nd person assist in your levels but that’s something I more vaguely hearing about way back (and clearly refuse to look up as I type this).
Rating: 8.5/10
Recommend? Very much so. Despite some slight inconsistencies it is enjoyable from a general playthrough perspective, though a bit more annoying on the completions side.
Time: 21h
Ever since it’s announcement I had been quite skeptical of this game, seeming a much slower paced and ground based game compared to the high octane speed (though slightly problematic) based gameplay of Eternal. Though I was able to find a way to enjoy it in the form of shield dash cancelling most of my fears were relatively true. The game definitely is slower and requires a very specific, up and close, playstyle. Despite this, glory kills are nearly gone entirely to much dismay. I found a lot of the arenas a lot more flat and awkward with a bit of all too familiar enemy patterns yet chaotic. Even when you do enjoy the intricate base gameplay, it gets interrupted by the dragon and mech sections. While cool in concept these sections are quite basic and tiresome. What is even more egregious is the exploration. Many levels are too big for their own good both as just the doom slayer and especially in the dragon riding levels and it becomes a slog hunting for secrets that makes me long for linear based levels. Yet, even the linear levels have issues as there are far too many points of no returns (some of which are nonsensical) and there is no way to load a specific segment of a level like in Eternal. What’s more your save is dedicated to the difficulty of your choice. You can temporarily go to a lower difficulty for a level, but never permanently and sure can’t go higher. In contrast, the bosses are probably some of the best in the series likely due to the parry system as you get plenty of interactions rather than the typical back and forth or poorly implemented Eternal DLC bosses. My final note is that this game has a much more story focus meaning there are plentiful of cutscenes that I simply did not care about. I play to rip and tear, I don’t care about the reason why or what happens in between.
Rating: 6/10
Recommend? If you’re super into the concept for the Doom Slayer series of DOOM then you’ll probably like this, but if you want more consistent fast action gameplay… you might want to look elsewhere.
Mortal Kombat 9 (Vita)
0
0
1
6
Well… this goes to show that NRS has a long history of not having a decent handheld port of MK in their lifetime. The cutscenes look well enough, but even as you transition into the gameplay the characters turn straight into a horror flick. Suddenly characters all look 50 years older with random wrinkles and grey spots. Sometimes they even lose pigment in one of their eyes looking like they have gone blind and missing teeth. Simply to say.. It’s a mess. In overall combat you won’t notice it as much until you do an X-Ray and you see the blocky body parts interacting. The gameplay feels more or less fine, though I think there is some performance issues here and there. Yet, this is not all without benefit. This port has a unique challenge tower that takes advantage of the Vita’s touch screen and back controls and new costumes that aren’t in the original game.
Rating: 4/10
Recommend? Though I really like the new challenge tower and additional costumes, the game is just far too ugly and problematic to really recommend.
Lumines: Electronic Symphony
0
0
1
5
Rhythm puzzle game that has you drop 4x4 blocks of varying patterns to build a combination and score all while a soundtrack creates a visual effect on your board. Fairly fun overall as there is both mostly great songs and a fun yet simple puzzle system. Unfortunately the gameplay is a bit gated in that the main mode is Voyage. Voyage requires you to score and play levels back to back as difficulty increases. You must always start from the very beginning and try to make it to the end without letting the puzzle pieces reach the top. Each level has it’s own song and “skin” for the board. Upon completing a level, you can play that level specifically or in a custom playlist of unlocked songs if you want, but it won’t count for score nor can you unlock further levels. Needless to say if you are trying to unlock everything then be ready for the long haul as your eyes dry out, water up, strain, and begin to twitch as there is a lot of content and frantically try to stop your blocks from towering up. A slight saving grace is that technically you can continue after dying at the cost of making your high score forfeit. It may not be much of a loss for some, but for some reason I put off going this route until I reached the last quarter of the levels. Needless to say I needed to rest my eyes after finally finishing it all.
Rating: 8/10
Recommend? Though stuck to an obsolete (yet personally favored) handheld, it is very enjoyable and do recommend getting it whatever means necessary. I only wish there was an alternative to Voyage mode to unlock songs as I did not enjoy repeatedly starting from scratch.
April 2025
It should be noted that this is both Evoland and Evoland 2 in a single package. This may be something you already know, but it wasn’t immediately obvious by the title. Needless to say I have a separate Evoland 2 copy in my library that I will have to replay later. Now that that’s out of the way, these games are love letters to the progression or RPG and RPG adjacent games and their EVOlution through the years.
Evoland 1 has you start as a basic classic Zelda like and with each pickup upgrades your bits and gameplay as you progress. The game is a nice bite sized adventure packed with varying gameplay mechanics and loads of references to some of the greatest RPGs out there. Aside from having to repeated traverse some dungeons while looking for secrets, this was a fairly enjoyable experience and the way the game goes from the basic 16 bit top down to a Final Fantasy-like (among other games) kept me constantly engaged in what was going on. There is a basic story but it isn’t particularly deep or drawn out.
Evoland 2 takes the concept of the first game but sets it in a far more expansive story with greater adventure. Starting as an amnesiac you go on an adventure with a newly made friend to figure out your past and potentially save the world. Since the game has a much greater average play time the your transition between game styles is much slower. In fact, much of the changes are a slow burn until later in the game before they pick up the pace. Regardless, at all times you gain companions who have abilities you can use to better traverse any obstacles and enemies in your path. With a much more interesting story there is also an immense amount of NPC interactions. Not only is there humorous and lore dialogue, but a card game that you may or may not begin to loathe pretty quickly as most players are well out of your league from the start and having to retrack them down later can be quite a pain. Speaking of retrack, trying to go back through all the levels especially with recurring dungeons is incredibly frustrating as knowing which version of the same dungeon can be confusing. It’s not to say that this fleshed out game is bad in anyways, in fact it’s pretty great and well rounded. However, the immediate back to back whiplash from the first game and the completionist requirements for this game can feel like an incredible slog. Needless to say, give yourself a break from the first game before diving into this.
Recommend? Absolutely, both games have so much charm and plenty of references that are bound to give you some sense of nostalgia.
Now that I finally completed all of Replicant, I thought it was due time I gave Automata a try. Admittedly I was a bit reluctant after Replicant’s Dynasty Warrior-esque gameplay, but much of that was immediately relieved in Automata’s more complex combat system that was closer to a character action game like Bayonetta. It was about half way through my first ending that everything suddenly clicked and I understood all the praise this game received. We are immediately introduced to our character 2B. An android responsible for destroying alien machine lifeforms that threaten humanity. With the help of 9S, another android, they traverse a post-apocalyptic world filled with much mystery as the themes of duty, honor, and what it means to be alive (among others) are embedded throughout. Needless to say, the writing and story is an enjoyable experience. It does not necessarily require you to play Replicant to enjoy, though it does give much more insight and background to some details and interactions.
Aside from various melee weapons and a ranged support bot, you have access to a collection of chips you can equip to enhance and/or gain new abilities. Some chips are more mandatory than the other and you can only equip so many at once due to cost values. It seemed tedious at first, but learning to combine chips to optimize your gains while limiting your costs was oddly satisfying especially when you get to that perfectly synergized build. The various areas throughout the land give you plenty to explore in their wonderfully diverse beautiful environments and your various tools to traverse reduce any fatigue when needing to revisit any one area. The characters themselves are not only well written but the actors behind each one did a fantastic job invoking their emotion and personality in every line. Aesthetically, I love their designs. Giving off an aura of cool if not a little extravagant. You can unlock costumes and gear (purely aesthetic), but I rarely felt the need to as I absolutely loved their base looks.
When you’re not busy taking on story or grinding chipsets/materials, there is plenty of extra content including side quests and fishing. Fishing is a bit of a downgrade as all you do is cast your line and react when a fish bites. No interactive minigame or bait required. So, if you are trying to hard complete the game… well you may tear what hair you have out. The same frustration can be found when filling out the enemy data. Each side quests further builds the world and offers great interactions and rewards though they typically are just hit lists or fetch quests. Only a few side quests carry over through playthroughs, so be warned but also never feel you need to do them all on your first… unless you are already invested that is… As for endings as opposed to Replicant’s 5 endings, Automata sports a total of 21 endings. Now, there are only 5 actual story endings whereas the remaining 16 are situational “bad” endings that you can checkpoint from. One of which is missable so be sure to stagger your saves and maybe look up one to save yourself some potential headache. Somehow I staggered my save just perfectly to avoid a total meltdown. If you were to just go for your first main ending, you might feel the game is incomplete as opposed to Replicant which has a more complete single ending story. Automata’s first ending feels a bit abrupt and like much is left to question. HOWEVER, Automata makes up for it by making each ending playthrough much more diverse than the repetitive playthroughs of Replicant. I won’t divulge further as to leave the experience for any potential newcomer, just know it’s very much worth it and that just about everything carries over.
Recommend? Absolutely, it is one of the cases that truly lived up to the hype and only wish I did not wait so long to give it a shot..
Choice: Chose to help others even at a cost.
Note: This probably could have been a 10/10 had the hard completion required so much frustrating RNG and nierly nearly having to start a save from scratch for all the endings. I also probably forgot to mention a few things, but to be fair that's probably better for you to experience on your own.
Zelda inspired dungeon crawler that takes the classic top down Zelda experience and combines it with the sea focused environments of Wind Waker. To put it simply, you do a lot of travel between islands where you will engage in puzzles and basic combat to eventually stop a living fortress, Oceanhorn. Though it does take a lot from the top down gameplay of a classic Zelda, your movement is 8 way which can cause some awkward traversal as it does not feel it was meant to have 8 way movement. Visually the game is kind of bland as the 3D models look very generic and kinda blobby. I frequently find myself lost or confused as far as what I need to do next. You do have a log in your pause menu but the UI/UX is atrocious and often had issues parsing what I was looking at. At times it would overwrite itself with what I did most recently even if it was not objective related. The sea travel often becomes cumbersome as it is just an on rails shooter with low engagement and repetitive gameplay. At least with Wind Waker I could enjoy leisurely sailing with boat dad and treasure hunting or exploration and an engaging aesthetic.
Recommend? Not really, aside from it not being my thing neither the story or the visuals ever captured my interest.
So, I bought this in a mega FMV bundle kind of expecting games like Dark Forces 2 where there are FMVs embedded into your typical boomer shooter or other gameplay. Instead these are more just movies with choose your own adventure timed choices strewn about. Granted this is my problem for not investigating more and it’s not inherently bad… just not what I was hoping for.
This game specifically focuses on an everyday waitress/bar assistant who stumbles upon an ancient pirate adventure. The problem is that there are a few plots that happen fairly quickly only for it to all just kind of end abruptly. At some point it just kind of seems like they lost the plot or didn’t have the ability to follow through fully. In essence it is just half baked and most situations feel uncanny to say the least.
Recommend? No, the story just doesn’t feel complete and has a surprisingly low venue variety to justify any sort of interest.
Multi-shaped and multi-ruled mine sweeper. In short, numbers on a revealed spot tells you how many mines there on connecting shapes. You must reveal non mine spots while marking the suspected spots that have a mine. Some rules only count parallel shapes, while other puzzles will include diagonally connected shapes. With more and more rules and varying puzzles the difficulty ramps up quickly and getting a perfect run can feel near impossible. Supposedly there is never any guess work, but I often run into a situation where I don’t realize a specific square and end up ruining my perfect puzzle solution. Luckily you can rewind the failed action at the cost of your solution being marked as a perfect run. You can always start a fresh run of that and any progress made can be returned to at any time in case you want to try another puzzle or just need to rest your bloodshot and fatigued eyeballs.
Recommend? Generally yes, it has plenty of varying puzzles that will force you to think outside the box (or whatever shape is in the puzzle).
Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth
3DS
P4 Playthrough
Max Lvl 69
First I should preface that my experience is through Hard mode so I can’t say how much that affected my overall playthrough versus a normal run. That being said, a lot of the time I didn’t really notice it and even would forget I chose that difficulty. Very key moments and situations it was very evident I was on hard difficulty. So, for the most part any decent JRPG player can get through the game fine on this difficulty, but it may not be worth it for these select lynchpin moments that will just obliterate your momentum.
General and Dungeons
Spin off game that brings characters from both Persona 3 and Persona 4 together for an all new dungeon crawler RPG adventure. Despite being both a spin off and a handheld exclusive, Persona Q Labrynth has a lot of love and polish. Both well designed 2D art, cinematics, and 3D models look fantastic with their chibi designs. All characters are fully voiced with amazing performances including a stellar English Dub which is even more surprising that almost all lines are read in full instead of a short remark to represent a full text of dialogue one might expect. Though it takes character and gameplay aspects from the newer age of Persona, the actual dungeon crawling is closer to that of the first two games where you are traversing square by square in first person. In fact, you use the second screen of the 3DS to draw and customize your map as you go. The variety of tools provided allow you to uniquely draw and identify squares on each floor as you traverse to your preference and needs. Fully traversing a floor will give you both a complete map to easily navigate, but also the ability to open up a specific chest on that floor with valuable items. Each dungeon is incredibly unique thanks to the focus on floor puzzles, visuals, unique mechanics and the FOE system. FOE essentially is a pursuer type enemy that is far too strong for your party and must be avoided at all costs. Returning to these dungeons later in the game will likely let you take down these fearsome enemies and often will have a side quest require you to do so, though still a challenge with payback not coming so easily.They are typically used hand in hand with the dungeon’s specific puzzle mechanic.Party
Though I appreciate bringing the loved cast of both Persona 3 and 4, I quickly found out that there were just too many characters to swap out from. More often than not I utilized the same few characters with the occasional swap out character depending on the dungeon focus. Luckily characters not in your party can still gain XP with items, though seemingly at a reduced rate and would still require grinding to bring them up to speed. It also seemed the P4 characters had a much higher ability ceiling compared to their P3 counterparts. Perhaps there was a tradeoff for such, but I didn’t look too closely. The newly introduced duo, Zen and Rei, are absolutely amazing both with their writing and their abilities. They were a staple of every team I used without question as they are the perfect support and offensive team member. Interactions from all characters feels like a wish come true that would otherwise not really happen in their respective games.
Combat
The combat is a mixture of old and new as you will engage enemies in a turn based fashion with a front and back party. The key difference from most Persona games is the Boost system. Hitting an enemies weakness or landing a critical puts that character in a boost state. This not only empowers them, but nullifies the cost of their next ability. Unfortunately if they miss, don’t land another weakness/crit, or get hit the boost immediately goes away. Because of the boost system your SP/mana is drastically lower than a normal Persona game. One one hand, this makes SP preservation and moves that cost HP far more valuable. On the other, this can lead to incredibly frustrating situations if an enemy is constantly casting a party wide spell removing your hard earned buff. This makes inflicting status effects and the new stat binding inflictions all the more vital to a successful dungeon crawl. Bosses are pretty standard, though I found a couple being particular nuisances requires much preparation and even then one took 89 turns of uninspired strategy to defeat.
Inventory
You’ll want to make the most of each adventure into the dungeon as you have limited item space (materials do, in fact, take up item slots) and if you ever need to gain health/SP from the Nurse at the hub it will cost you a steep price. Selling materials not only nets you money but allows you to purchase new items, but those too are very pricey. You are going to be very broke for most the game. Especially if you don’t realize you can store items at the shop like me who spent 7/8ths of the game without this knowledge as I had everyone’s unused gear sitting in my inventory at all times.
Personas
Plenty of returning and beloved Persona’s return. You can only carry so many Persona’s at one time. Any time you trigger a Persona that can be obtained, you are forced to take it if you have room or swap it out/discard if you don’t. The auto obtain can be annoying if you need to avoid overwriting the same Persona when you go to save them to your Compendium. You still get to combine and equip Persona’s not only to your character but to all your party members. The key difference is that everyone has their unique persona always equipped and any obtained Persona after that is equipped as a sub persona. Main persona’s hold the main strengths/weaknesses, present ability tree, and 4 open ability slots, while the sub persona simply offers a separate set of it’s own abilities to add while equipped to the character. This is great if you’re like me who never wishes to abandon the Persona assigned to each character as well as balance out their weakness.
Recommend? Though I doubt most will get the chance to actually play this, I very much recommend it if you do and love Persona. The story, gameplay, and general quality are all equally excellent and I can only hope a port or collection comes out for other systems one day.
Note: Great to have excellent returning Persona music
March 2025
It's a long abandoned fairly uninteresting RPG. There's really not much to talk about and if you somehow come across it you should definitely avoid it. I think the last update was like 8 years ago.
Final HR and MR
HR 230
MR 103
Finally some quality Rise content. The game completely removes the abhorrent horde mode and continues on with quality hunts. Every map it introduces is also far better designed than that of the base game removing much of the pointless verticality. I didn't notice much of a difficulty ramp though the variant of the flagship is one hell of a fight. The new swap move system is… well I didn't really use it until post-DLC game at maybe MR 75. It might be because of Great Sword but they just didn't seem that interesting until I got to certain builds. All in all this makes Rise a much better game to what I previously considered just a decent entry.I did grow fatigued as the grind got real around MR 100 where it just felt like it took far too long to level up just for some variants, but all in all satisfied.
Rating: 7/10
Recommend? Yes, if you somehow own Rise without owning this, this is a must have.
This is what a DLC should be. A complete contrast ot the main game and overall improvement compared to the first DLC. We get an entirely new land to explore. One that is vibrant and looks like a painting of Italy with colorful flora and brimming with life. Everything about this DLC is just a fantastical journey beginning to end. The map seems far more condensed as well, no longer needing to traverse large areas of nothingness hoping to find a quest. On that note, it even offers a checklist in case you are worried about missing anything (after the GWENT collection, we desperately needed this). Each area feels like it has a purpose and story. Speaking of, the story is nothing short of amazing. In fact, I'd even say it's better than the base game's which is a feat. We get even more well written characters with involved plotlines, though some characters seem to require some book knowledge though they ease them in well enough. We also get plenty of expanded skill trees, armors, and a special venue that I was pretty satisfied with. Only downside really is the lack of a genuine love interest though I think that plays off my issue with how the base game handles the love interests.
Rating: 11/10
Recommend? It's simply a must play.
What a weird game. Through and through it is just weird. It abandons it's beat em' up gameplay for a run and gun style game yet... it still has the option for some of the beat em' up but really you just want to be shooting the entire time. Plenty of special infected to give the game variety, but the problem occurs when the game puts you in small areas with a bunch of these and you end up getting stunlocked to some degree which is more than mildly frustrating. Not to mention the PS3 controls aren't exactly accurate or well thought out. It unfortunately also keeps the very limited inventory system despite crafting and material gathering being just as important as before along with the fact you now require ammunition to carry. Also much like the Yakuza's of the time, chapters focus on each character and all combine to create a complete story and as such some chapters are more interesting and important than others. In fact, one might question the purpose of some characters at all.
The only thing more crazy than the concept is the story. It just is off the rails from the beginning and the twists and turns of the end are just some insane B-level movie ideas that I could not really have expected. Though I am mostly referring to the things that happen rather than the actual plot itself. The overall plot is kind of... forgetable. It just isn't that interesting compared to everything else that is going on throughout the game.
Rating: 3.5/10
Recommend? Not really, maybe if you want all things Yakuza but this game doesn't even have much for minigames or sidequests not that it controls all that well even if it did.
With Clive having been announced for Tekken 8, I thought it was high time I got around to this FF entry finally.Needless to say I was not disappointed by the DMC inspired combat though it did take a while before you get access the more interesting customizable movesets. Once you get there though, it's pretty damn amazing. The eikon boss battles can vary but many often provide insane and brutal moments that had me immersed in every second. That being said, the inclusion of quick time events felt odd and forced, not to mention the invasive UI that came with it. In fact, the menus and pop up titles are some of the bigger problems of the game. When you win a battle it is immediately followed up by freezing time and popping up with effectivley a "You Win" message. It really takes you out of the moment, especially with such a realistic aesthetic game. Clive proves to be an amazing character and the theme throughout the game is strong while bleak, much like the world you traverse and the quests you accept within it. Much of the supporting cast are also great with Cid, Jill, and Torgal being standouts along with plenty of the antagonists as well. I did find the final villain to be a bit on the duller side and the ending didn't quite create a final grand moment though I won't divulge. I did find it interesting that despite it's more medievil setting, it reminded me of some general similarites with FF7 in it's story, themes, and characters. Perhaps the work on the FFVII Remakes had some influence.
DLC: Echoes of the Fallen - Not exactly a full on DLC as much as an additional dungeon. Thus it's pretty short as you don't get much of a location, side quests, or story. That being said the boss was insanely fun with a fantastic boss theme to boot.
The Rising Tide - Now this is a DLC. You get a brand new land to explore that is far more vibrant and beautiful than the bleak mainland you traverse. There are plenty of new characters, side quests, and even new abilities to learn. The final boss doesn't quite compare to that of Echoes but we do get plenty of other great battles throughout all within a well self contained story. It's odd, in a lot of ways that the release of these DLCs mimicks very closely to the release of the Witcher 3 DLCs, but I digress.
Rating: 8/10
Recommend? Yes, but just be prepared more for action than your typical JRPG with a focus on more "adult" tones.
Feb 2025
You are the rat kisser
It feels like I played a lot more games than is being shown but not entirely sure why. In some fairness Witcher 3, MHRise, and some unlisted games have been taking over my life. Right now just hoping to get through what I can and start prepping these reviews before hand instead of doing it all in one go. Putting FFXI on the backburner for a bit as I am enjoying my break from MMOs for the time being.
Steamdeck
Game gifted to me, though I had some knowledge of the premise already (gift giver knew this before gifting it).
All you need to know is that this game has all of your rat shaking needs. Decent enough little that involves shaking rats among other actions, but don't worry about that yet just keep shaking your rat. Interestingly enough it did receive a content update shortly after playing which vastly improved the last half of the game.
Some of the issues with the game involve a lack of a decent save or checkpoint system which can create frustrating moments. This issue is reinforced by the fact that the first portion of the game can be a bit of a slog once you have played it a few times. Sometimes just shaking the rat on it's own just isn't enough. Some "tutorial" messages pop up each time you approach the same object it pertains to can be a bit annoying as well. Please, I know when and how to shake my rat THANK YOU VERY MUCH. The rat shake meter can be REALLY slow if you are shaking without moving, this kind of loops back to the issue with the beginning of the game but a weird design issue none the less. Lesson here? Always shake your rat on the go.
Steamdeck: Generally plays well, though maybe not the most ideal for rat shaking purposes. Ended up using the touchpad for most of the shaking as I fear my joystick would have broken in twain.
Recommend? Yes, aside from the free price I got, it is a relatively cheap game that is generally good ol' rat shaking fun.
Rating: 7/10 Shakes of a Rat
Plus Ultra: Will never forgive myself for missing out on the Valentine's event that allowed you to kiss the rat.
Steamdeck
Only covers base game up until Sunbreak
I put off this game for a long time because I was pretty annoyed with how the game appeared to play. I fell in love with Hunting Horn in Worlds and to have it reduced to some fast paced and simplified weapon that lacked the oomph… well I disagreed a lot with it. In truth, the grander issue dealt more that I was expecting either more a more Worlds like game or something more similar to 4U… but this wasn't either. (But also the HH thing really bothered me…) Yet when I started treating this game more like a spin off I actually started to enjoy it a bit more. That is until I started noticing more aspects that bothered me.
Let's start with the good. Generally great monsters with Magnamalo being a fantastic, albeit a bit tame, flagship monster. It looks great, interesting abilities, and awesome armor/weapons. Aesthetically, the Japanese Ninja/Edo period style is very charming and a nice change of pace from the typical Jungle small village vibes most MH games give. This is both good and bad, but it is very streamlined and wants you to go. What I mean is the game doesn't want you to waste time doing anything. It wants you to go to the monster, get there as fast as you can, and move on to the next one. Gathering points only take one interaction and animation to receive your material. You can do most actions from your dog mount which you can use to traverse the map quickly. You are able to run up just about every surface and even when you can't you are likely able to use wirebugs to zip around like Spider-man. This also translates in combat where weapons either get very fast move sets or additional moves that allow them quickly in and out. Admittedly this probably made Great Sword far more viable for me being a newcomer to the weapon set. It was interesting to see how they designed and adapted monsters to keep up with this new fast paced MH. For instance, a lot of monsters that shot balls of fire now shoot streams of fire as well for more coverage. The palamute, which is your new ally and mount, offers not only quick movement but an additional ally in battle with it's own skills.
So, what's the bad? Rampages, which are a sort of horde mode introduced in this game, are god awful experiences. Having to setup and use installations is cumbersome and not enjoyable. It was one thing to do this for Zorah Magdaros in Worlds, but that was a massive Kaiju. This is just a stream of various monsters and is just clunky. Luckily there is a limited signal mode that buffs your weapon so you get get in there and fight yourself but it's a small bandage on a huge wound. This game has some of my least favorite maps in the series. With the wirebugs offering new traversal it seemed like the maps were over-designed to compensate for this. They are far too vertical with too many holes to just fall down or go up that it just gets down right annoying. So many areas are just unused for monster hunting purposes and don't have much purpose other than "Oh neat, I can go here" or picking up various items which usually aren't all that necessary. Maybe it's just me, but I felt a lot of the menus and figuring out where I gotta go to equip my palico, equip skills, forge, etc. was kinda confusing. It just felt over complicated and spread out. As I said before, the fast paced and streamlined is as much of a negative as it is positive. Plenty of weapons were quick without having the weight behind their attacks, dumbed down (hunting horn songs can now all be done with repeated button presses), and the game itself just felt a lot easier than usual. You even get stat enhancing pickups while traversing which makes the game even easier. You don't even get access to most things until your well into HR and just nearly before Sunbreak. With everything being able to be done as you go, it almost felt like you were rushed to get done. Also, being able to sharpen on your mount mid battle is a crazy work around that renders most sharpening abilities moot. I've also rarely ever needed to upgrade gear. For most of the base game I was using the same basic low rank gear with some slightly upgraded weapon until I made the Magnamalo set. Most fights, even in High Rank ended within 6 or 7 minutes tops. Village quest line is so short it's kind of embarrassing to the point where it reminded me of Generations on the 3DS. I understand that there are more hub quests that really get into the meat of things but it just felt kinda barebones. Oh, and I feel the "final" fight for the original set of hub quests is horribly designed.
Steamdeck: Plays perfectly with no real issue. I found I could get in more than a few hunts before worrying about the battery.
Weapon of Choice: Great Sword
Favorite Monster: Magnamalo
Least Favorite Monster: Chameleos
Recommend? Yes, despite my disagreements with the choices for this game it is still an overall solid MH game. It does however rank to my second least favorite one just above the water combat entry. That being said, the DLC so far has been a massive improvement in general and will share more once I finish that out.
Rating: 6.5/10
Very reminiscent of Hatoful Boyfriend yet it lacks quite the same charm. Maybe it was just too little too late but it doesn't quite carry the same weight as dating my bird boyfriends in terms of writing or zaniness. It's multiple protagonist pitch is interesting if not slightly annoying as it almost makes the game feel a bit like groundhog's day from a player perspective. I'll admit I did not expect the amount this game does not hold back when it comes to suggestive themes or maybe how accepting your characters are with dating cats. In some cases it was kind of uncomfortable with just how unhinged(?) some moments and suggestions could be. The cats themselves are fine if not a bit too defined by one characteristic. It gets to the point where a couple I just can't imagine ever being a genuine love interest in either design or personality. The mystery behind the story seemed pretty easy to figure out from the get go, which isn't inherently bad but doesn't do much favors either. It's also an all or nothing story which is also kind of annoying especially since to get other endings or paths you will have to go through the entire game again as there is no manual save system. This wouldn't be so bad normally, but there's also no skip button for dialogue either so you'll have to mash out the messages until you make your choices.
Best Cat(s): McMurphy, Trixie, Secret
Worst Cat(s): Kibbles, Floofybutt
Recommend? Not really. It really just doesn't quite capture the same absurd enjoyment that Hatoful Boyfriend provided and in some ways gets a little to serious.
Rating: 3/10
Steamdeck
The UNS game that solidified the formula for Ninja Storm games to come. This covers the first portion of Shippuden and just about all of the Akatsuki arc. Removing the open village travel of the first and enacting a more limited hallways traversal yet now expands past the Hidden Leaf Village allowing for more sites giving a bit more of a drawn and detailed aesthetic. Combat is relatively the same but now has Team Ultimates. There are no more minigames, only fights and fetch quests which is slightly disappointing but also understandable. We also no longer see Giant Battles but instead we get our QTE's in major fights that when done quickly reveals a "hidden" extra scene.
General improvements all around, though some of the boss fights are kind of tedious and boring. I did have weird camera moments where it would get stuck on something in the background and obscure my vision until it became unstuck. It was only really in one general area and was easy to fix, but something to note. I was kind of disappointed they glossed over some fights that felt overall important for their character growth but overall covers a decent amount.
Steamdeck: Unlike the first UNS game, this runs very smooth. From my experience there have been no slowdowns on any arena, ultimate move, or cutscene.
Recommend? Yes, it's a solid entry though it can feel like a slog to get through at times.
Rating: 7/10
Completion Note: There are a few multiplayer achievements, one of which would require up to 70 online battles if done right. Needless to say you'll likely not get this without help.
This only covers base game and Hearts of Stone DLC
I first played this back in 2016 and absolutely loved every moment. Unfortunately I had to drop it pretty early on in the story due to a lot of stuff going on and as time went by it became harder to pick it back up. Yet, I mustered the courage with the latest announcement and was not disappointed. In most ways the pinnacle of the series that gives you ease to dabble into Geralt's various trees whereas in the past games I always felt I needed to focus out a singular tree to be of any use. The writing is great even in just simple side quests to the overall main line story. Each and every character is well voiced, a great cast, and plenty of returning and new characters/monsters. It was even great just enjoying picking up contracts and prepping for each monster. I would often find myself spending hours on just those alone and almost wish for renewing contracts to keep me traveling around the land. Speaking of land the areas felt absolutely massive and were a treat to explore. That being said it almost felt a punishment to explore too much as you may explore a cave that is meant for a side quest. Vise versa is that if you don't explore enough you could miss out on a side quest because you didn't see the quest giver. Combat is pretty solid though sometimes the lock on can be a little unreliable. In addition, at least at my difficulty, some abilities just don't seem to work as intended.
It was kinda surprising to see how buggy and glitchy the game could be. I didn't remember it being so back in 2016(?) but then again I was still in the honeymoon phase of the game. Things like your horse doing a forward (or backward) wheely while going down a hill, monster's sometimes being in walls, noticeable tears/seams in the environmental textures, interactions with people or objects only working if you save and then load right back into the area, among a few other cases. It's not particularly game breaking enough to detriment, but the Cyberpunk release now makes far more sense. Traversing the world can be clunky, especially on horseback where Roach will just dead stop because of slight incline/decline among other path changes. As per each installment, there is a love interest mechanic in play, but I don't particularly like how it's done. First, the game REALLY pushes one interest over the other. Where you normally get to choose to flirt or make various plays, one interest it just happens casually in the dialogue before a choice is given not to mention many of the story implications really weigh in that interest's favor. The other issue is that you don't seem to get much of a chance to sensibly interact with both before making a choice or pursuit. Understandably committing to both is bad in a moral standpoint, but you have to make your choice with each interest at the end of their own questline which initially feels like you can miss. If they were going to do it in this way I would have liked to have a final make a choice after getting to know both. Again, not the most moral route but with the way the game is structured it makes a bit more sense. This only leaves to question how actually succeeding one of them affects the DLC interests. Menu-ing kind of sucks, it's just a lot to parse through especially with inventory and skill trees. A smaller point but some side quests definitely feel under cooked and/or not well thought out as the solutions sometimes don't make sense or one is just objectively (even roleplaying as Geralt) the right choice. This isn't exactly unique to the genre, but so many special weapons seem to not be very usable or special. This may also be difficulty related but man does your equipment deteriorate fast.
Hearts of Stone: The DLC was surprisingly small in that I was expecting a whole new land and adventure considering how it opens. Don't get me wrong the story is still very well written and each character (old and new) is well done, but other than the main quest line you only really have a couple of side quests and a couple merchants to buffer it out. All in all it was a great time and loved the finale of it all. Only wish I could have kept my love interest around.
Recommend? Very much so, currently working on Blood and Wine and it's only been getting better.
Rating: 9/10. Could easily be a 10 had the various bugs and issues been fixed/handled differently.
Completion Note: Play Gwent with every merchant you come across and win. I started to skip out on Gwent for a while and now I'm suffering the consequences as merchants can randomly have a card you need. Better to get it done along the way than to backtrack.
Note: I feel like I'm missing some things to note, but I've been spending a lot of time on this post and can feel my writing deteriorate… Hopefully I'll be a bit more concise and accurate with my Blood and Wine panel.
January 2025 and the Remnants of Dec. 2024
Did my December report a bit too early as I had finished out some games before the year’s end. Apologies in advance for typos and unusual repeated spaces. I have yet to fix my keyboard…
FFXIV is currently done and dusted. All expansions done, combat jobs at level cap, at least one relic weapon per expansion obtained, and various extreme/savage raids done. I’ll be picking it back up again when more updates come, but in the mean time I can finally put it down. However, this does mean I’ll have to start committing copious time to FFXI… but we’ll put that off for another time.
December 2024 (Games unaccounted for)
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The Complex
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Peeping Dorm Manager
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Story Of Eve 2
January 2025
The game was about what I expected but still enjoyable. Granted I did assist someone I knew with it not long before it so any surprises were pretty clear. Won't go into it too much as the journey is the experience.
Recommend? Yes. Short, Sweet, Cheap, and Unique-ish.
Kind of just picked this up on a whim after it has been on my wishlist for so many years. Much of the appeal has dropped as the characters like Isaac and Astro Boy have fallen by the wayside for me. Still a decent puzzle fighter with some semi-interesting mechanics but nothing truly stand out for me.
The story mode seemed interesting at first as the branching paths had interesting and unique narrations… until you realize there is only one ending. Matches can take a while to load in and a lot of characters just didn't have much appeal to me.
Puzzle fighter of choice: Zombie
Recommend? Eh. You could probably just default to something like Capcom's Puzzle Fighter, but it is not a terrible alternative.
Guilty Gear X2 #Reload
My second GG game so far, yet somehow not the second in the series, and I can already say I'm glad that the insta-kill moves are far less common than the first. Went for a soft beaten game in that I cleared an arcade run (that does not have arcade endings), a story run (which acts as arcade endings), and an extra mode run which seemed to be a sort of score attack. I would have done more story runs with other characters but apparently the final boss ranges in difficulty vastly and found my skill just not up to par to take down that beast. Oddly enough I enjoyed the final boss when they aren't super amped up. Their unique attack interactions were fun while still keeping the boss fairly difficult. There was a huge cast of characters so I may go back and try out a few more when I work up the courage to face that boss again…
Fighter of choice: Bridget
Recommend? Yes, though later in the series, it is a clear upgrade from the original GG game
A mixed bag of Mega Man entries. Oddly enough I seemed to like the games people didn't with Mega Man 7 and 8 being the better where as 9 and 10 being a weird step back. 7 and 8 seemed to continue evolving the Mega series with upgrading in the shop, dedicated power button and unique level interactions (yes I liked the board riding levels) not to mention continued graphics upgrades and even some voice acting. That's when 9 and 10 happen where it felt like it took place immediately after 2 in terms of graphics and abilities. It was a serious case of whip lash. Honestly I didn't mind most of the reverted changes EXCEPT for the fact that they took away the charge blast and (most importantly) the slide. Why? WHY did they take away the slide!? Anyways, my critique for the series as a whole is that by this point I'm sick and tired of Wily (and apparently Mega Man is too) and his dumb multi part boss fights that I just can never enjoy. That and every Devil variation. Yes, I know reusing a main boss is pretty common in older games, but it has always been a tired recurrence for me. Oh, and if you are relying on save states like in the last collection, let it be known they revert to checkpoints rather than where you save in this. A last annoyance is that the collection menu button isn't the same in every game leaving confusing button presses.
Recommend? Overall yes, but definitely a bit more divisive
Genuinely surprised they could make a modern Mega Man game and still retain some of the classic difficulty. Even with the new gear system this game can be pretty hard and yet a lot of the bosses and levels were pretty interesting… if not a bit annoying at times. Yet, this game didn't get much fan fare and very well may be the last of it's particular series. In some ways I can see why. Something about the visual design of Mega Man just doesn't look right. He has the general size and shapes, but something is off and I don't like it. This is weird for me because a lot of the levels and robot master designs are absolutely great. Additionally, albeit a smaller issue, the other characters calling Mega Man by "Mega" also felt weird and forced. Though a much more story driven game then some in the past, it isn't particularly captivating. Still a lot of the game is pretty great and the robot master battles and abilities are some of the best out there, even if I didn't always appreciate their level design (looking at you fire level).
Favorite Robot Master: Torch Master (Just straight up a Street Fighter battle)
Recommend? Yes.
So, you're inspired by Mega Man, huh? Well, this game is too. Unfortunately, it just can't quite nail the execution. The fast paced focus of the game is kind of nice… when the game works that way. Yet, the absorb mechanic is so funky it just never quite flows well. Essentially after depleting an enemies health (or boss's health to a point), you must dash into them to absorb them. The quicker you do it, the better the absorb rank. Since you can't see health bars/points you will have to memorize the shots it takes to get to that point… which is annoying. Yet when you are able to speed through a level absorbing at mach speed it feels great if not a bit non intuitive since you can take contact damage if you are too early or late. Just feels a bit conflicting. The level order is far more clear than any Mega Man game as each defeated boss will show up in the level their ability is meant for.
Bosses are pretty uninspiring, lack visual appeal, and countering with certain powers does not seem to consistently work. Also, a major bug I experienced is if I went through roughly two levels worth of progress (even if it is the same level repeated) I'd start getting huge amounts of lag. This made certain levels and every boss fight near to actual impossibility as reactions just aren't possible with the amount of delay and slow down. The only solution I could figure is to completely close the game after each attempted level before trying again or another. It is incredibly annoying and by far the worst offense.
Recommend? Not at all. Maybe had a sequel been made there could have been improvements. Instead, play something like Shovel Knight.
Would it be weird to say this is my favorite Serious Sam game? I mean by all accounts it doesn't follow the formula, so it kind of isn't. Instead it's a 2D, arcade-like, over the top action, and (most importantly) doesn't punish you for simple pickups and is far easier than any SS game thus far. The gimmick of the game is you can attach weapons on top of each other to make ridiculous looking loadouts. You can further upgrade each weapon with unique abilities to continue the craziness. I loved it, making these monstrosities that either helped traversal, melt mobs, destroy bosses, or a mix of all the above. Not once did I have to roll my eyes as 1,000 kleers spawn because I picked a +1 armor token… since that doesn't happen in this game. Instead it is just non-stop mayhem in each level with unique vehicle levels to mix things up.
All that being said… it does have it's issues. It's actually pretty easy to breeze through levels without interactions. Not all weapon upgrades seem useful. Levels in general weren't particularly interesting, though that's not unique to this entry. Though most bosses were alright enough, the final boss is so boring. It offers little in terms of engagement.
Recommend? Generally yeah, assuming it is under $10.
Gotta say, though this is an improvement over the last game… I still had trouble enjoying it. The opening level alone gave me a headache with it's loud repeated music that wasn't particularly great. Enemies still respawn to some effect, but at least ammo seems to as well if not having checkpoint stations offer health/ammo as well. I found a lot of levels to be confusing or just not enjoyable nor does the map help much in any way. The actual combat was decent and the various death animations from the basic humanoid dino enemies were great… until you run into some later enemies who take a lot to go down no matter what you use. This not including some enemy types that will just melt you if you show them a polygon of your character. The worst offenders of the games are generally the bosses. Most require you to hit specific spots on their body. Most of your weapons will often miss these spots due to auto-aim, hitting another spot before hitting the weakness, etc. (if they were to hit the spot at all). It just made for an unpleasant experience. The best thing about the game is the bore gun which is by far the most interesting weapon the series will have to offer until maybe Evolution.
Recommend? Not really.
June 2024 - December 2024
So… it’s been a season… or two. My phone stopped opening the Steam app so I couldn’t sign back into BLAEO. Once it did start playing ball I was so out of habit I just kind of haven’t been back. Needless to say I won’t be writing reviews as I was more worried about hammering out my progress thus far. Anyways, here’s to another year of killing the backlog and happy holidays.
June
-
DOOM 3: Resurrection of Evil
6.0 hours playtime
no achievements
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Cherry Kisses
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DOOM 3
10.2 hours playtime
no achievements
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Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker
PC
July
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Celeste
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FlipWitch - Forbidden Sex Hex
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Nitroplus Blasterz: Heroines Infinite Duel
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Final Fantasy XIV: DawnTrail
PC
August
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GUILTY GEAR
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Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite
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MARVEL SNAP
6.2 hours playtime
no achievements
September
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Acting Lessons
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Miss Neko 3
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Story of Eve - A Hero's Study
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Axiom Verge
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Bendy and the Dark Revival
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Mega Man Legacy Collection
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Five Nights at Freddy's: Into the Pit
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Treasure of Nadia
46.3 hours playtime
no achievements
-
Castlevania 64
Nintendo
64
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Castlevania Legacy of Darkness
Nintendo
64
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Castlevania Circle of the Moon
Gameboy
Advance
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Castlevania Harmony of Dissonance
Gameboy
Advance
-
Castlevania Aria of Sorrow
Gameboy
Advance
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Castlevania Lament of Innocence
Playstation
2
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Castlevania Curse of Darkness
Revisit
Playstation 2
October
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Kaiju Princess
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Tattletail
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X-Angels
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Being a DIK
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Horny Suika: Wet Watermelon
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Lucy Got Problems
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Scarlet Maiden
-
Dragon Ball Z: Budokai
Revisit
Gamecube
-
Dragon Ball Z: Budokai 2
Revisit
Gamecube
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Dragon Ball Z: Budokai 3
Playstation
2
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Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi
Playstation
2
November
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The Dark Pictures Anthology: House of Ashes
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Final Fantasy VIII
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HoloCure - Save the Fans!
1st playthrough character picks:
X-Men: Children of the Atom - Silver Samurai (Akuma defeated)
Marvel Super Heroes - Psylocke
X-Men Vs. Street Fighter - Cammy and Gambit
Marvel Super Heroes Vs Street Fighter - Ryu and Akuma (Dark Sakura defeated)
Marvel Vs. Capcom: Clash of Super Heroes - Morrigan and Venom (Shadow Lady defeated)
Marvel Vs. Capcom 2 - Cammy, Gambit, and Silver Samurai
The Punisher - Punisher
December
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NieR Replicant ver.1.22474487139...
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Futa Fix Dick Dine and Dash
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Dead Cells
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Milfy City - Final Edition
13.3 hours playtime
no achievements
May 2024
Well, I was hoping to write this at the top of the month but anytime I thought to a counter came to mind saying, “I could making progress on FFXIV right now…”. Needless to say that happened a lot. Now that I have allotted some time I can confirm… I have played A LOT of FFXIV but at least now I’m ready for the Dawntrail expansion. Bonus is I can work on other games now that I don’t need to hyper fixate as much.
Games In Progress
Like A Dragon Infinite Wealth
May Progress: Cleared Stormblood, Post SB, Shadowbringers, Post ShB. All jobs to lvl 60+
June Goals: Clear Endwalker (done), Post EW(done), All jobs to lvl 70+, relic weapons, side content clean up, and extreme/savage runs.
Stormblood continues to improve upon everything so far while introducing new mechanics, areas, and cast. First and foremost, the change to a bright and colorful Japanese Edo period style of environment is a great contrast to the grey medieval castle scenery that Heavansward located itself in. In particular, I enjoyed the villain this time around quite a bit more. The post game and side game content also receive a massive boost with the inspiration from Japanese folklore as well as collaborations with other Final Fantasy games. Some of the new mechanics/gameplay include new traversal options throughout the world as well as in game objectives that are not just kill x and fetch y. As per usual the music is great and we continue to get more character development across the board. Overall a solid expansion.
Shadowbringers… Shadowbringers was the final push I needed to get me to play FFXIV when it released. Before then I had worries that I would not have the time commitment for an MMO… Unfortunately I was right as it would be 4+ years before I finally get to make any considerable progress in this game. Luckily, I was right about this expansion. Easily my favorite so far as it not only tackles interesting plots, brings forth a change of pace in villains, but also just a whole new world for us to explore and change. In some ways it feels like an entire game entry on it’s own. To summarize, we enter a world over taken by light and now must done the role of Warrior of darkness to snuff that light out. That concept alone is tantalizing. Interestingly enough, this expansion really starts to bring all of the threads of past story arcs together and get a glimpse of the big picture that had been vacant for so long. We also get a GREAT alternative to duty finder where you can use your cast of NPCs to join you in the dungeon. Not only does this offer a more single player experience, but there is also unique dialoge and even unique interactions (though I’ve only noticed this with one boss mechanic so far) with the cast of NPCs you choose. This also reduces any issues where other players may just charge ahead not letting you enjoy the dungeon and learn mechanics on your own instead of others openly explaining it, etc. Going forward I have been doing this for both this expansion and the next and no regrets. The general scenery across the maps feels incredibly refreshing and sets itself apart from the rest… other than some desert areas anyways. Not as much of a critique as an observation but it does invest entirely into this bleak existence as it maintains a constant serious tone with little to no comic relief or palate cleansers, if you will. Though FFXIV is known for (well a lot of things) music, this one is pretty great though I did find it to wane as you hear it more and more. Maybe because there are more vocals this time around but it can become tiresome.
Favorite Jobs: Monk, Dark Knight
SB: 9/10
ShB: 10/10
April 2024
March was almost entirely dedicated/stolen by my time with FFVII Rebirth. So, I figured I’d get back into FFXIV to finally start making some consistent progress and… ope there goes April (and half of May so far). It’s left my backlog… well on the backpedal but it is what it takes to take down a monstrosity of these proportions. Though the events don’t help the time sink… In other news I have finally scrapped together an excel sheet to track all of my games progress across platforms though still have much more to fill for pre achievement days and Nintendo products. My Game Completion List Here. So glad BLAO has made getting my Steam games on there easy. Anywaysen I hope everyone’s year is going well and see you (hopefully on time) on next month’s update.
Games in progress/played:
Stellar Blade Demo
Final Fantasy VIII
Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth
Neptunia Shooter
Devil’s Calculator
Lady Killer in a Bind
MK1
Tekken 8
Crystals of Time
HOG that reminded me heavily of Ghostwood. Simply put, it’s kind of a low effort put together game that has you aimlessly revisiting areas in hopes to find/refind a hidden object instance for a tool you may have already had. Puzzles are pretty barebones and the actual hidden objects feel just a tad bit too random. This could be in part that the actual art often leaves things to question not to mention questionable word choices for each object to find. Your character is given some background. You are a young woman in search of your father and investigate a mysterious mansion. This somehow doesn’t give any more room for the story, so much in fact that once you get to the final moments… it just kind of ends. No moments to relish, celebrations/mournings, or anything really just… credits. It’s entirely anti-climactic and leaves you as empty as the gameplay that got you here.
Recommend? No. A boring and sometimes frustrating mess.
Rating? 3/10
To be honest, I thought this was going to another “turn a childhood thing and make it scary” cheap ploy. A welcome surprise when it turns out this game has a lot of love in it and draws heavy inspiration from survival horror games, especially the Resident Evil series. Somehow this game captures fear, humor, deep moments, and satisfaction all in one. There’s just so much enjoyment out of this. What this game probably does best is it leads you to where you need to go without telling you to much. It gives you a reasonable thread, but lets you figure it out. You can figure something out and then go “Oh wait… maybe I can do this over in this area” or “maybe this is related to an item I have” and just revel in those aha moments.
In summary, you are a repairman sent to shut down a broadcast tower for a long since defunct children’s TV show. Unfortunately, it seems the muppet like characters are not too happy with your presence and must defend yourself with stationary like weapons. Since these are not outright zombies, they won’t stay down from trauma. So, use your limited resources wisely and learn what it is to be a friendly neighbor.
The limited resources for combat, well-constructed environments and navigation, the subtle themes addressed as you explore, the story as a whole, and the mysteries present along the way. Not to mention the absolutely well-done puzzles and secrets throughout (save maybe a couple secrets that feel a bit too arbitrary). Despite these characters being fairly normal in appearance, there were more than a few times where I did feel a semblance of fear and on edge. Yet, when they ragdoll and you can tape them where they land creates some truly great comedy. It is not without fault though. The actual reach of enemies (even including your wrench) is a bit hard to gauge and seems occasionally inconsistent. There are also a fair share of bugs and glitches you can encounter though rarely game breaking. I did also feel the final segment could have gone on a bit longer as it really delved into a darker part of itself and would’ve enjoyed having a prolonged exposure to that side of the game.
Recommend? Very much so. Survival Horror fan approved.
Rating 9.5/10
April Progression: Completed post “A Real Reborn” updates, “Heavansward” expansion, Post “Heavansward” updates. All Jobs, DoH, and DoLs to Lvl 50+.
May Tasks: Clear “Stormblood” expansion (done week 2), Post “Stormblood” updates (in progress), and All jobs to lvl 60+, Start “Shadowbringers” expansion.
If I have posted about base ARR you may know that I think it’s… okay. Story isn’t overly interesting, it has some good fights, and characters are mostly fine but leave a lot to build on. Now the post ARR updates… well it’s an incredible slog that has you do a lot of busy work with very little reward (in terms of narrative) pulling you along the way. It’s not till a severalteen hour cutscene that it starts to become interesting and… then you get to Heavansward. For ARR and post, my eyes kind of just glazed over and ended up skimming most text towards the end. It just couldn’t capture my interest.
Heavansward on the other hand is a massive step up in just about everyway. Great locales, dungeons, fights, and story. Characters felt more engaging in general though some I had to pretend like I remembered throughout it. Post Heavansward updates are more or less in line with the base expansion, but didn’t do much more than that for me. The jobs added in this expansion were neat. I particularly liked Dark Knight. Tried to get into Machinist but Ranged DPS just doesn’t seem to do anything for me so far though still far better than bard. AST… is interesting to say the least but I’m a bit too scared to commit to healing just this moment.
Favorite Jobs: Ninja, Monk, Dark Knight, and Warrior.
Least Favorite Jobs: White Mage, Bard, Paladin.
ARR: 6/10
Post ARR: 4/10
HW: 8/10
Post HW: 8/10
March 2024
Well, that was a month gone by that was entirely consumed by FFVII Rebirth. Though my general progress is not much to note, I don’t regret even a second of it. Now with Rebirth out of the way I have fully dived back into FFXIV and plan to finally start on the Heavansward expansion (though I’m currently and fervently grinding all job levels to at least 30 and maybe 50). Of course, I’ll probably drop that again to continue FFVIII at some point, but we shall see. Still, a very JRPG time of year for me it seems though I still plan to keep up with MK1 and Tekken when time allots.
Goddesses now walk amongst the Earth. To continue getting praise and worship many become idols but not all idols are equal.
A pretty decent VN that has you work with two goddesses that wish to become great idols like some of their peers. What’s more you have a familial like relationship with one of the great divine idols. Help these two rise in their popularity and enter a contest where they just may get to spread their divinity on stage around the world. The first thing to note is this seems to have decent production value with nice quality images and animations as well as voice work. The one thing that kept keeping me off guard were the number of musical sequences that made me think it was the ending sequence of the game… but then the game kept going. It isn’t a bad thing, just a bit of whiplash and possibly some lack of thought on my end. This game does get pretty fan servicey, but nothing out right lewd.
Rating? 7/10
Recommend? Kinda? To be honest, I kind of grew bored with it towards the end and didn’t care for some of the character paths.
I should start by saying that I genuinely hate mobile games. Everything about them just doesn't work for me. Yet, because Square likes to hide story in these (Kingdom Hearts >.>), I decided to start it when it released last year when I needed to take an hour bus to get to work. After much fatigue and weariness I ended up putting it down and only recently picked it back up on Steam… and I still hate it.
To no wonder, the game is plagued with the same cheaply implemented gameplay and microtransaction hell that most mobile games have. If you want to progress the actual every crisis story, you'll have to play through some of the original FFVII chapters as well as Crisis Core chapters before making much progress. Even when you do make progress in the new story, it takes a long while before anything happens. By that time, you've reached late game which not even an astounding amount of grinding will get you far. In fact, to progress you need a lot of RNG when you synthesize materia to not only get a high quality one but also has the stats you need. It's ridiculous, incredibly and utterly ridiculous. The gacha portion of the game mostly just gives you different weapons, though rolling enough times will give you stamps to unlock limited time costumes for the game which are the only positive thing in this game… if it didn't require an unholy hell amount of time to get the crystals to roll the gacha in the first place.
Recommend? Not in the slightest. I… I think I'll just have to watch the story in an online video.
Rating? 1/10
1st Playthrough Time: 110 hours
1st Playthrough Difficulty: Dynamic
1st Playthrough Final Level: 49
To be honest, this review is a little hard to write as this game had consumed my life for a month. Where do I start? What’s the best way to transition between points? How do I fully convey my pure enjoyment and awe of the entire experience? Well, let’s start with this: Rebirth improves upon FFVII Remake in every way possible. Probably the most frequent feeling for most of these categories, and the game itself, was… “wait… THERE’S MORE!?” in the most genuine and great way possible.
Combat
Though the combat at a base level is still very much the same action RPG it has been incredibly expanded with the synergy system. The synergy system allows unique interactions between characters like never before, deploying powerful combination attacks and even buffing your team. First, there is synergy abilities give either an offensive or defensive attack without needing to use up ATB charge (your means of using abilities, items, etc.). They are often great to use in a tactical situation such as needed to block lots of damage, hit enemies out of reach, and even build up ATB quickly. These abilities often work with a wide range of characters per character so you rarely have to worry about not activating them once unlocked. Synergy abilities are massive and more unique to a specific pair of characters that do lots of damage, stun, and apply a powerful buff for the duo enacting it. These buffs include anything from increasing ATB segments, no mana costs, increase stagger duration, and upgrading your limit break to the next level. Since these abilities are so powerful they require a bit of setup. First and foremost having the correct team members to activate and second you have to build synergy charges by using abilities that cost ATB charges (the more ATB charges cost the more synergy you build up). Admittedly, I didn’t completely understand this system and assumed much until about 60 hours into the game as I thought it was related to stagger and not ATB cost. In some fairness, even on dynamic difficulty, most fights didn’t give me a chance to use these abilities until maybe late game when it started to pick up a bit so I never had the chance to really test these theories. Speaking of Dynamic difficulty, it felt like it took a long while before the game adjusted to a difficulty that I felt challenging. It probably wasn’t until the final few chapters of the game where it really went into full effect whereas everything before that was pretty easy. Still, every boss battle I fought, and even most regular enemies, felt amazing (with maybe the exception of one). Anything I ever had trouble with merely required me to think of a different way to go about the situation (and sometimes maybe remember how Elemental actually works).
Combat in Short: The newly added synergy system creates a fun and new way for your characters to interact during combat while also giving us visually dynamic abilities. Dynamic difficulty is slow to calibrate to your skill level (hard is not available from the start). All fights feel amazing, save for maybe one bird in the sky.
Exploration
I’ll keep this portion short as this and story easily have the most to surprise new players. Exploration is exceptionally phenomenal. Without fail, each new area surprised me just as much as the last and even after all that surprised again. Exploring every area, whether it be overworld or in a dungeon, felt like it was so carefully and well crafted. Certainly you do get some ideas carried over from other games like towers that pin point certain locations of interest, but it definitely carries itself in a better way (I felt). The music creates an atmosphere that matches the areas locale and spectacular scenery. The various challenges and instances laid about feel more or less natural and feels like no space is created without reason.
Music
Oh my GODS the music in this game is not only abundant but phenomenal. I simply cannot believe how much music there was in this game, that side quests would get their own themes, we’d get several variations of some songs, and every single one is amazing to the last chord. I had pre-ordered the OST back before I even had a chance to play the game and I am so glad I did as this, much like the rest of the game, has far exceeded any expectations. Which is saying a lot considering FF has been known for solid musical pieces for some time.
Story
Again, Keeping this short to avoid spoilers. Starting with side quests, in which there are an abundance. Side quests offer a lot more than meets the eye. First and foremost, side quests tend to tie with one of your party members so you can sort of bond with them as you go along. This is a wonderful way to get character building and growth while you go about your tasks. Not to mention a lot of side quests tend to provide lore and story elements that some times feel like this should be main story content. Each side quest feels very self aware. That the devs know what people hated in the past game, wanted for rewards, and creating genuine interactions between the player and the various NPCs you interact with. Though I didn’t vibe with every character I came across, I did respect their existence and appreciated anything they were having me go through. Not to mention, every quest felt unique. Very rarely was it as simple as go beat up x thing, or collect y things. Simply the amount of mechanics was astounding. Main story was amazing to every last beat. They did each character so incredibly well, building them up wonderfully and expanding upon parts that were either brought up before or simply alluded to in past. You won’t find that everything is the same from the original (as suggested by Remake) we are on an adventure where fate may change. Yet, any changes made often just enhanced the original moments and/or kept me in wonder on what will happen next. One thing is clear is that the game intentionally leaves some things vague and unanswered.
Story in Short: All side quests felt as important to the story as the main story itself and provided wonderful character and world building. It even introduces a affection system that increases every time you bond with someone and/or talk to them. Every point was enjoyable. The main story enhances just about every kept sequence from the original while providing a sense of mystery and wonderment. One thing is clear is that the game intentionally leaves some things vague and unanswered.
Mini-Games
Why would I make a section for mini-games? Well, if you saw any of the complaints or praises for the game, then you might know that there is an absolute mega-ton of mini-games in here… and I loved every single one. It should be mentioned that 99% of the mini-games are extremely optional. So don’t worry if you think that the game is going to force this down your throat and bloat the game. It absolutely doesn’t. In fact, the game wants you on the story as much as you might, but those damned enjoyable minigames will keep calling you back. So, let’s start off with easily the best one, Queen’s Blood. A new card game introduced that has you try to conquer lanes to gain points and outwit your opponents. The amount of depth this game has is unreal. There are so many cards and ways you can go about building your decks, taking the victory, and facing against challengers as well as challenges to keep your card bloodthirst sated. Without surprise, it is no wonder people want a stand alone game or even IRL TCG version of it (I know I do). Though Queen’s Blood stands out quite a bit, just about every other minigame feels fairly on par and either makes some wonderful callbacks to the original, enhances existing ones, and provides some wonderful new entries. They are not always well crafted so to speak as some challenges can be a little rough, but not outright unenjoyable.
Minigames in Short: Though there are quite a many minigames in the game, almost none are mandatory. Yet, they are so fun that they may as well be. Queen’s Blood being ~~King~~ Queen among them. Some may have more challenging sections than one may like, but still a great experience in the end.
UI/General Complaints
This game is not without it’s flaws. Some challenges felt unintentionally rough. Some wording in the battle failed UI needs better clarification. For instance, if you get caught in a series of battle and die, you will get several options including “Retry from Before Current Battle”, “Retry from This battle”, “Retry from Before Battle”, “Resume”. One of these options puts you right as you face the last person you fought, one places you at the start of the sequence of battles, and one puts you in an area before the battle begins. Though my wording may help you as you try to figure which option does what, I assure you that these are not very clear especially in the heat of it all. I’ve probably restarted the longest and hardest series of battles 3 to 4 times over because I either selected the wrong option or the default position of your cursor changed and I selected the wrong option by accident. Frustrating to say the least.
All in All: I probably missed more than a few points as there is a lot to cover and it was hard to get everything in my head down on paper in time. Not to mention I wanted to make sure the honeymoon phase passed before I passed judgement. So, it’s without a doubt that I can say this has easily gotten into my top 10 if not top 5 games of all time. It’s perfect, perfect. Down to every minute detail. For any issues it does have, other parts of the game more than make up for it. Definitely my favorite game to get the 100% completion.
Recommend? Absolutely yes. Though you don’t have to replay Remake, it is certainly recommended. Just know that this game improves upon it quite well, so don’t be discouraged to get this one either way. Even talking about it now I am tempted to boot it back up again.
Rating? 10/10
Beaten > Completed
Not much has changed for me regarding this game, which may be for worse than better. The general combat still feels good, balance patches have smoothed some things out, cross play, and quality of life changes (such as seeing ping, having Next match appear instead of rematch, etc) have been a huge ~~Ed~~ Boon to the experience… even if some of these changes should’ve been in here from the get go. Still, the game is still a shadow of what it could and should have been. Not to mention the seasonal rewards have been getting worse since Season 2. Still keeping strong and will continue to experiment with characters each season.
Season 1 Main – Raiden w/ Cyrax Kameo
Season 1 Rank – Demi God
Season 2 Main – Reptile w/ Scorpion Kameo
Season 2 Rank – Elder God
Season 3 Main – Mileena w/ Sektor Kameo
Season 3 Rank – Champion
Season 4 Main – Johnny Cage w/ Janet Cage Kameo
Season 4 Rank – Still in Progress
If I understand, these DLCs are not sold separately which can be conflicting considering how underwhelming the first one can be if you aren’t interested in it’s focus Pokémon.
Isle of Armor
A fairly bite sized DLC that has a few open areas, 1 new Pokémon, 1 new variant, and a bunch of returning Pokémon from previous games. The new variant of Slowpoke is alright, but you only have access to one of it’s evolutions, the other being locked behind the following DLC. This feels incredibly misleading considering the amount of scavenging you need to do to get the item for it’s evolutions. The new Pokémon it introduces, Kubfu, is it’s entire focus. So much so that the end of the game has you do a battle tower with only that mon. So, if you aren’t interested in this new fighting type, it’s a pretty easy skip as far as it’s adventure goes. All the activities are either straight forward battles or a collectibles quest that unlocks Alolan Pokemon. Sadly there just is not much to this DLC.
The Crown Tundra
Where the Isle of Armor lacked interesting content, the Crown Tundra made up for in adventure. We are no longer tied to one main line quest focused on a single mon, but instead 3 different quest lines focused on a plethora of new mons and variants. The whole theme behind this is legendary hunting. It’s the entirety of what you do and it’s great. Solve puzzles to find the Regi mons. Track down and outsmart the new bird legendary variants, and find out the mystery of the crowned legendary themself. It is nothing short of grand and exciting to go on this catch-a-thon. Of course, more Pokémon get returned to the dex and we finally get access to the new Slowking variant. On top of that, there is a new raid dungeon with a twist. Essentially creating a rogue-lite situation where you must use the Pokémon you battle in the dungeon to make your way through the series of battles to the final legendary Pokémon. However, you only get the one mon, so you must decide which to keep and what paths to take to fight the different obstacles. Admittedly, I didn’t do this too much, but it feels much better than the game’s normal raids, not to mention the final prize seems to be a guaranteed legendary. We also get some great characters including an excellent comic relief who leads you along this adventure.
Team: Galar Slowking, Marowak, Urshifu, Zoroark, and Venusaur (swapped in the three legendary birds for the final challenge…)
All in all the DLC averages out to be between alright and good. Pretty much how I felt about the base game. I did make it my effort to take on a whole new team of Pokémon for this DLC pack which I think made the experience all the more interesting. My overall gripe was that there really isn’t a Pokémon Center in either DLC and needing to swap mons, buy items, or heal up was quite a pain.
Recommend Generally yes, but maybe on sale and wouldn't go out of my way for it.
Rating: 6/10
Though this game has several performance issues, I actually quite enjoyed the base game. It being one of the more fun Pokémon games I had played in quite some time. So, I was interested in seeing how it’s DLC would play especially after experiencing Sword’s DLC.
The Teal Mask
We get a new area which is fairly sized and offers a ton of returning Pokémon, 1 new evolutions, 2 new variants, as well as several new legendary mons. The game has a more involved story with heavy folk lore themes and fun new characters. There are some side quests, but a lot of them seemed quite easy to miss as they don’t really have a notification on the map to draw you to their position, but one in particular is quite enjoyable and reminiscent of Pokémon Snap. The pace can be quite slow at start, but does quickly evolve as you go. My biggest issue with this DLC was traversal. Several caverns are easy to miss and often lead into semi-difficult hard to navigate areas. Overall an enjoyable DLC that leads straight into the next…
Team: Oricorio (Ghost variation), Dipplin, Sinistcha, Magcargo, Ariados, and Basculegion
The Indigo Disk
Serving as a sort of continuation of the first, it picks up from your last experience as we get returning characters and continuing plot lines. However, the big difference with this DLC is that all trainer battles are DOUBLES. It’s an interesting twist that sets itself apart from the series allowing you to rethink your team comp and abilities. Though, when facing wild mons you will still have single battles. We also get a main terrarium area that is divided into four distinct biomes to catch these new Pokémon. So, what’s new in terms of Pokémon? Well, we have two new evolutions, a new legendary, new legendary variants, new mythical, and a plethora of returning mons.
The story of this game is less folk lore-y than the last and has a more standard feel as we get an elite four-esque battle goals. Though, in addition to facing these mighty four you will have to first to pass their challenges which were all fairly unique and a nice twist. Luckily they were only needed to do once, much like beating the elite member themselves. We also get more ties into crater zero despite being in a school far away. The only let down here was that it required battle points (earned by doing menial tasks) to take on the elite four and I was never directed or given privy to the new legendaries. I never actually ran into any of them and don’t know how. So, if there was some sort of content leading you in that direction, I simply was not aware of it.
Team: Granbull, Alcremie, Alolan Muk, Malamar, Overqwil, and Dewgong
Though this DLC pack cost a bit more than Sw/Sh’s I think it is a decent price considering I felt it held much more consistent adventure and story. Just a great overall experience.
Recommend Yes! It’s free and well worth your time.
Rating: 7.5/10
Ongoing Games
Like A Dragon 8: Infinite Wealth (PS5)
Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth (3DS)
Final Fantasy VII (Steam)
Final Fantasy XIV (PC)
| 1492 | games |
| 24% | never played |
| 7% | unfinished |
| 38% | beaten |
| 28% | completed |
| 3% | won't play |