Recent reviews by AverageUnknown

Almost the entire Halo franchise in one package. The earlier games show their age a bit (especially 1) but honestly just happy to have them preserved and easily accessible.

Solid co-op roguelite shooter with weapon variety that makes Borderlands weep.

Great platforming, great action, gorgeous pixel art, and a solid story backing it.

My main issue with this game is with how it structures itself as a metroidvania. You need certain items to get through certain areas, but the game doesn't put those cutoffs early enough to make it clear that you're going the "wrong" way. I spent my first half hour of the game exploring almost all of the ostrich path before realizing I was completely cut off from the critical area at the end of it because I needed an item from another area. I felt I had to look up a guide at this point because I didn't want to end up wasting my time like that again.

And that really sucks, because in every other regard, I really enjoyed this game. The art, music, and animation inspired curiosity and wonder. The puzzles encouraged me to pay attention to little details, and to think about the cause and effect of the items I acquired in the game, in a way that felt pretty unique. That first half hour of exploring was really great until I realized I needed to backtrack through the entire area to go somewhere else and might need to do so if I picked another path at random, and that kind of poisoned the entire experience for me, even though I came away from it more positive than negative.

I enjoy the primary gameplay loop here a LOT. The physics based platforming is really smooth and intuitive, and managing to get super high speed going is very satisfying, especially because it takes skill to keep that momentum going as you lose reaction time. This is what 3D Sonic could be.

All of my gripes come from the fact that this is a roguelike--and some of that is just my own preference. The items either feel game-breaking or inconsequential, with little in between. Obstacles and hazards differ between biomes, but when I had to repeat an entire world after failing it--or when a new world went back to an old biome type, which happened several times--those differences didn't end up feeling very meaningful to me. Similarly, there are only 4 bosses out of the 10 worlds to complete the story--bosses 1-3 are recycled in worlds 4-6 and 7-9, just with more lasers being shot at you (which is a shame, because the boss designs are pretty solid and I would have loved to see more). And while I appreciate what was attempted with the story, providing snippets of narrative and dialogue in between levels within a world, they often ended up feeling truncated if I completed a world on the first try (I'm not sure if that was an expectation that multiple attempts would be needed or just how the story was).

All in all, I think the game would have been better off hand-crafting levels and reducing the random roguelike stuff down to a few meaningful upgrades as the game progressed...but it's still fun, and I'll probably boot up endless mode once in a while for some high-speed zen.

Short but sweet puzzle platformer. Had a great time with this one.

- Level cap reached in like 3 hours by doing the story
- Story is rushed and 95% cutscenes, AND I can't play it with a party
- Open world is lifeless and the only real thing to do there (daily hunts) your character will travel directly to with the push of a button
- No group content except one dungeon at the current level cap
- Paid and free different versions of both in-game and cash-shop currencies, and the free cash-shop currency can't be used on 90% of cash shop items

Like the combat is fine, the talent system is fine, and the actual story beats are okay, but otherwise this is just speedrunning all the worst design choices a game could make.

Also the movement tech is reasonably fun but the game doesn't feel like it was made with it in mind, and the fact that there's a quintuple-jump before you just get a magic jetpack really feels like they ran out of ideas.

It's kind of insane that Fromsoft made this at all--it feels like a mod someone would have dreamed up for the base game if they had the resources. Every run is like an Elden Ring randomizer with a timer and it's a hugely refreshing take on the style of game.

The story makes about 20% more sense than the usual Soulsbourne. The side stories for the playable characters are about half as obtuse and give lots of meaningful rewards.

I ended up loving this game even though I wasn't that enthused about the idea going in. (But please for the love of god either nerf Bell Bearing Hunter or buff his drops. He is almost never worth fighting and that sucks.)

The puzzles are great, using some clever new mechanics as well as remixing existing ones. Some of them are more difficult than anything I remember from Portal 2, which was sometimes satisfying (when I figured it out myself) and occasionally frustrating (when I had to look up a solution from the one youtuber who had a playthrough up).

I wasn't a fan of the story. The voice acting is solid especially for a community project, but the whole thing feels distinctly like a fanfic--new characters that have traits from existing ones but someone tried to write them better (often with too much dialogue), tries to answer questions about interim moments in the original story but just raises more questions, doesn't quite manage to nail the humor of the source material, and story beats that just kind of echo the most recent official installment.

But you're probably not here for the story. Fact is, it's more Portal-ish content in a world devoid of new releases. And it's pretty good at being that.

I have rarely seen a game integrate its mechanics together so neatly. Game is great.

A lot of the inspiration of this game seems to be Recettear and similar shop-managing sims. Your character is trying to pay off a debt, and has limited time to do so. Your days are split into 6 segments. Several of the actions you can take, like potion brewing and sending adventurers to find new materials, will take multiple segments to complete, but don't require your constant attention, so you'll need to plan your days out in advance to best leverage the time available while waiting for other tasks to complete.

Potion brewing starts out pretty simple--ingredients contain one or more magical nutrients, which mixed together in the right quantities will produce different types of potions. Ingredients also can impart positive or negative attributes on a potion (smells good, tastes bad, etc.) which will affect the base selling price, and eventually you'll start getting orders that require some of those attributes. Your potions will start out perfectly aligning with the recipe, but ingredients later in the game will come in stranger and more unwieldy ratios, making it more likely that you say "close enough".

When it comes time to sell, it's Slay the Spire-style card battles. "Enemies" (customers) will say things that haggle the price down or increase your character's stress (which gives you a chance to draw penalty cards instead of normal ones), and you try to haggle it up within the limits of their patience.

You also have character befriending mechanics straight out of Persona. The rewards for getting closer to a person are both getting to learn more about all these charming characters, and getting new cards for your haggling deck. It just works together beautifully.

Also the music is fantastic, the animation ends up looking super distinct and solid despite the minimalism, and did I mention the characters are charming? Game is great.

My gripes:

1. By the end of the game, you'll have a bunch of potion cauldrons to manage and you'll have the tools to make those potions brew pretty quick. The game slows down a LOT by the end if you're playing efficiently, although I was invested in the zen of potion brewing and salesmanship so I didn't mind too-too much.

2. Game really needs an endless mode after you finish the story.

Edit: hey they added endless mode.