Showing 1-9 of 9 items
Turnbasing parrystravaganza is The Right Way I'm not one of those people who would ever go into a game for cleansing purposes (those are *made* to do that not *played*; like I'd want to relive the two times of my life I didn't want to get out of bed), but discovering a game I'd been interested was partially about grief in a year of much personal grief was actually not bad to engauge with. I think it was due to them not rubbing our faces in it like some creators seem unable to rise above the temptation of. OK, now that this is out of the way, I'd like to say I am kinda done with action games that over-emphasize parry, as it usually (ie Not Revengance Or Sekiro), is in a way that blows off positioning and into a passive-counter-passive-counter Bad Mike Tyson's Punchout. So...just remove the action part if you're going that route? Mais Oui! And I'm really impressed with their escalation of scope, something many RPGs tend to either dither with in the slow middle part or blow their load early and then go on a gather the Mcguffins/army to fight the bad mans. This one has the motivation change with a deft hand, and probably looks even better in a second go like Trails or Frieren. I don't think this would have won in most years, but it's a very slickly designed game with alot of interlocking reflection of gameplay, art direction, balancing, and narrative on each other.
Finland: The Country Where Good Games Come From. And with this, we have Hempuli's next creation, a very wierd card game inspired by Zachtronics. Solve murder mysteries, fight eldritch horrors, align the planets, arrange cards. Kinda the UFO 50 of this last year.
Love me some Team Ladybug, and this one moves even better than their previous Metroidvania Lites. Various weapons, float states, Lux moves, and general deeper use of MV powerups like You Got The Double Jump really sells both in the moment fights and traversal mechanics. It's the combo-ability that really sells it; mixing up airdashes, sword platforms, dive kicks, etc to get tantalizing powerups and into areas early is smart even if the areas are selfcontained for the most part. The fights can be a letdown; no, not the boss fights which are particularly great (especially That One late in the game), but some later zones require more powerful weapon drops from enemies to keep the fights from being bullet sponges and the story just kinda is there half the time. Love that grimy soundtrack. Love that typically clean pixel art.
Ondra's Titties! Obsidian made the Pillars universe not like eating hay! One of the things I like about this is that they did it by "showing not telling" and shoving a gorillion people, facts, and dates at you. Nope, just "You have shrooms on your face. This island has shrooms errwhere. People are also getting shrooms on their faces but go nutso. Also, Shark Garrus." The combat is delightfully open, and the multifaceted stats (there's no "STR" or "MAG" but an offense stat that calculates damage for everything, which is a really neat idea for hybrids). Sword and board for some really good FPS(wording)? Sure. Pistol and Grimoire for MAX BOOM BOOM? Sure. I also liked how nothing happens from behind unless it's got a callout or you saw them already aggro on you, which I guess works in this kinda well. But one thing I enjoy about it is that the game ends just as the bag of tricks empties. There's no "I did this puzzle" or "more parkour to open the gate again". Just, final battle and credits. That's good restraint.
I'm still shocked we even got this (there cant be that many left at NI after all the blowups), but I'm also still glad it came out. Now, like the Eiyuuden game from last year, it's not quite the manic wide-open creativity to a Zappa OST-meets-adorable empathetic children's tale to the extent of the first. It's incredibly sedate this go around; and if I may, a bit watered down. It's stretched out with reused plot, Non-Sicko Game powerups in the place of a few of the first's mechanics, and there's also a real problem with soft and hard crashes here and there. That said, it has an extensive options menu (remove hold to accept!), and it's still got that charm and wierdness enough for new players to NI's wierder fare.
Not a year for Fighters and me, but man I still love me some VF, even if it's just a re-re-re-release of this vaunted entry and its on-line is smooth as buttah.
I was sold day one for more Crypt "I will actually beat this with at least one character some day" of the Necrodancer, but I was surprised when it was a Rhythm/WarioWare game. Oh well, I'm glad to support them and Baranovsky's tunes are still tight.
This is a Rorschach test series, but I was surprised at how universal the game was criticized. Good intro/Act 1/Act 2/Intermission/Finale for what the game is, Act 3 horrid. And that's kinda it? There's not alot here, (it was thrown together to have something to deliver on its original launch), and when it's content to do mild character study, close a *very* special arc in the series, do more excellent Arkride Solutions jobs, and let Nadia run wild, it's great! But hoooooo boy when it doesn't...it's easily Trails' worst section. Yes, even worse than CS4 at its nadirs. Max asset reuse and treating the characters like a boy treats his action figures (deja vu in this list) for some useless nothing...to make the game 20 hours longer? I dunno. Sure. They fixed the combat UI, that's good, soundteam_JDK continues to repair the damage from a decade ago, the endboss is up there with Azure for the best fight in the series, it's just it didn't need to be this long for no good reason.
In this house, we stan Doujinshi that harbors extreme creativity, even if their work isn't always up to their best like this one. Kinda goes too hard into the intellectual theming to the detriment of the rest of the package, but Cavyhouse is allowed this.
