Errrm what the scallop! Did Mario make this? It's Made In Italy. The thing only has one purpose in this destitute world, and that is to watch you slide numbers and make big number. Is there merit in this? It's not that fun, even with secret ninjutsu tips you can get on the Internet. If I was on a plane and it crashed and fucking exploded, I would not think about this game at all during my final breaths. Maybe if there were 2048 passengers I probably would chuckle a bit, then again I'd probably be sleeping or some shit.

Now, the game has crazy mods that overhaul everything, it's like Skyrim! Anybody can do it even. Look up the plethora of clones that exist, some may shock you, some may whelm you, some may goad you further in the pursuit of knowledge regarding Obama's last name, but don't forget that the soup is cold and the salad is hot if it's a school lunch. Plus, isn't it better to replace the numbers by cooler things like cool cars because otherwise, you are very nerdy for playing 2048 i aint ngl imagine going "I reached a high score of 131072 🤓🤓" instead of "I reached nirvana on the highway to hell" have some self-respect you nincompoop. What would brock obama say if he saw all that "i suck dick and huuuuuh i eat pussy too" damn he's bisexual thats crazy alhamdulillah hope he enjoys the 2048 mating technique 👏

Are you telling me a high number happens to fall like that? No! He orchestrated it! Gabriele Cirulli! He slided in a chain of numbers that happens to be my IP address and he gets to be a lauded game designer? What a joke! I do respect the hustle though. There's a spin on the formula not available for logging on Backloggd called Nextagon and that one was cool huuuuuh I'm exhausting my options here, can I discuss the game without anymore ad hominems? How about the fact the game promotes incest values by only allowing us to pair twin numbers together! This wouldn't fly even in the joint. i delet myself. bye

Alright, strap in. I have a lot to say.

Let's get the elephant out of the room before I actually talk about this game. I am going to bring up issues I have with the game's art direction later on but none of that has to do with how sexualized the character designs are. I am fine with all of those other characters you want to use as a counterargument. That is not the core of my issue with this game, but before I get into that, I'll talk about what I DO like because I do still like this game.

I think on a graphical level, the game looks amazing. It runs consistently well and has been thoroughly play-tested which I shouldn't have to appreciate, but most great games usually have at least some small level of bugginess that this game does not have. Additionally, on this aesthetic front, I love the game's soundtrack, probably one of the year's standouts alongside Rebirth and Prince of Persia. I also think the linear and open-world missions in the game are, for the most part, quite fun! There are some survival horror-type missions that I found particularly memorable, even if they clash really hard with the rest of the game, but we're not there yet!

But the place where I have the hugest amount of praise for this game is its combat and enemy encounters. I'm gonna talk more about the game's "identity" later but this is where Stellar Blade's identity is strongest as it can't really be put in any camp for these 3D hack-and-slash games. It's not slow-paced and deliberate like a souls-like, but it's not super quick and combo-heavy like a DMC or a Bayonetta. The combat feels like a good mix of light comboing, really nice feeling parries, strong finishers, and a good amount of diversity in the way that you can approach combat. The enemies and bosses are also very well-designed and super difficult. The game shines brightest when focused on its great combat and there is a sequence near the end that works well for this game. It's great!

The game for the most part is really fun, super polished, and not particularly painful to go through. If someone might not have some of the same issues I do later on in this review, then I can see someone loving this game to pieces. But.. I have some SERIOUS issues with this game.

Starting off is the one that everyone, even the people who like the game is bringing up. On a narrative front, Stellar Blade is an absolute mess. The game's script is written so awkwardly, almost like it was machine-translated rather than actually localized. The dialogue is super awkwardly written and some moments in the side missions just feel kind of... embarrassing? The story setup is mildly interesting (until you notice something I'll bring up later), but the story's themes are barely explored apart from naming conventions and a couple of moments at the beginning and end.

The narrative didn't even need to be particularly deep or anything. Bayonetta and DMC games don't have deep stories, but A, they're not really trying to, and B, they do have a memorable cast with personalities at least. When I heard from reviews that Stellar Blade's cast isn't the strongest out there, what I DIDN'T expect to find was the most emotionless and barebones main character this side of The Callisto Protocol.

Eve is such a remarkably bland character, lacking a single actual personality trait. They try to develop Eve in a couple of ways regarding her ambiguous relationship with Tachy, who is also boring and has no character and then dies. They do a scene with this relationship in particular near the end of the game and it just felt so stilted and not super earned. But surely the other characters are better, right? I mean... I guess so? Lily at least has.. a personality and Adam, as boring as he is, at least has some interesting things happen with them later on, but the character writing is so incredibly weak in this game and the voice acting, both in Korean and English only makes it worse.

Okay, so that's the narrative stuff out of the way, what's that other major problem I have with the game that I've been edging you out of? This game does not have a fucking identity. I've been trying my best to hold back on comparing this game to NieR Automata up to this point, because I wanted to judge this game on its own, but it's so blatantly apparent just HOW MUCH of this game was derived from it. You play as a sexy android lady from a space base and are sent down to get rid of all of the bad guys that took over the Earth. You run around a semi-open world with a little drone that follows you around everywhere and talks to you. The game goes into detail on who the guys you are fighting and who you're working for REALLY ARE and there are themes of Identity and Religion and Life. The main character is very stoic and emotionless, but unlike 2B, here it's because they aren't written to have one. Hell, there are characters named Adam and Eve IN NIER AUTOMATA.

I know this all seems super surface level, but these comparisons wouldn't be such a huge problem if they had a super strong identity on their own and it really REALLY doesn't. The most distinctive thing about this game is that you're fighting Semi-religious gross penis monsters called Naytiba instead of robots. But that feels more like it clashes with the game's sci-fi aesthetic more than anything. Speaking of clashing, the character designs don't even really feel like they belong in the same game, most notably when you compare Eve, Lily, and Adam's designs. And they are the main 3 characters of the whole game. And most of the side characters don't even have faces, which is super weird? Why does the hairdresser have no hair? What are we doing here?

This also extends to the locations, Xion just feels like a pretty generic post-apocalyptic world. Half the time, in these linear missions, you fight in ruined cities and sewers and the two semi-open world areas you get are both bare empty deserts. I know asking for visual variety in a post-apocalyptic game is asking the wrong questions, but maybe have at least one of the open-world areas not be a desert??

All of these things combined, the art style clash between the different characters, friend, and foe, in this game, the super generic areas, the basic and derivative story, the lack of any characters with more than one personality trait, and the themes it doesn't touch on very much at all, leads to a game that doesn't really have an identity of its own. Hell, even though I love the music, it sounds very much like NieR music. The game's identity shines brightest in its combat, in its missions, in its boss encounters, and in one section near the end of the game that I thought was actually excellent.

This is clearly a talented team and the fact they were able to make a big console game this good on their first try is astounding. I can only hope their next game has more of a unique identity.

TLDR; The game is well-polished, has some great music, some decently fun linear and open world missions, and some exceptional combat and boss fights, but the character designs clash super hard with each other, the environments don't feel distinct, the story and character writing are incredibly bad, and the game just doesn't have a strong identity outside of copying NieR Automata's homework.

As I traversed the upside down castle with whip in hand fighting knights with my cool back dash I thought to myself Castlevania Symphony of the Night is a great game! I was however playing Afterimage, a Metroidvania made by Aurogon Shanghai. It's one of those games that I simply can't remember where I heard about it but It's been on my radar a while for it's gorgeous visual style...and I'll frankly play any Metroidvania you throw at me.

From a Metoidvania point of view it's kind of weak in a lot of ways though. The game is absolutely massive with about 20 locations to explore over the course of the adventure. Some of these locations are almost the size of other games of the genres entire maps and it took me over 30 hours to initially finish it off. The level design is expansive with various secrets to find with more skills and abilities unlocked as you would expect but backtracking is a nightmare and fast travelling uses a consumable item which just seemingly discourages it early on. The mid game I found it difficult to know exactly where to go and there is a weird difficulty spike due to the multiple directions which took a while to smooth out. The story equally feels it lacks cohesion. It's very dialogue, character and plot heavy but at the same time wants to be mysterious and lore intense like Dark Souls / Hollow Knight yet instead just leaves a lot of questions like it was never really finished. Playing the extra mode unlocked after several endings as a side story does answer some of it, as does the true ending but there are still many aspects of the plot that feel very incomplete or unsatisfying.

So why a 7/10 if you are luke warm on the level design and story Fallen? I hear you ask in confusion. It's simply because despite that, I had a lot of fun with it. The locations are varied and the artwork is really stunning throughout, the soundtrack is beautiful and sometimes haunting. The protagonist Renee's animations are smooth and combat for the most part is fun with a variety of weapons, accessories and magic to choose from.

Yes the game could have done with tightening up a little bit where I think they got a little overzealous but overall it's a fun little game.

+ Beautiful art design.
+ I liked the soft haunting melodies of the OST.
+ Combat is fast and fluid with some good options.
+ I just like exploring in Metroidvanias...

- Level's are a little too large.
- Story could be tightened up more, it wants both a lot of dialogue yet mysterious lore and doesn't quite work for either.

A simple well designed arcade game seemingly inspired by pachinko. The gameplay is very straightforward, morish, and tightly designed making this a fun little time passer. There's a variety of characters that give your balls unique mechanics and keep things interesting throughout. It's not very long but has a variety of levels to keep you busy.

Peggle doesn't do anything revolutionary, it certainly introduced and popularised the concept of pachinko in the west to some degree, but it also doesn't try to weaponize the gameplay as traditional pachinko or modern games do. It just provides a solid game loop and lets you indulge in it.

Feels like the kinda game they could have bundled with windows back in the day and its genuinely refreshing to see a small self contained game that doesn't spread itself across DLC and a cosmetics shop. Exactly the kind of self contained robust design you only really see from indie now days.

what an addicting game tbh
really cool art style and concept
but i have some critics
1- the grind is really tough
some of the essential building that you have to build will cost you 4-5 hours of grind
2-the gap of difficulty between the first and the 2nd boss is insane
like i killed the first boss on my 1st attempt
the 2nd took me 9-14 try to kill him
other then that this game is really really really cool

I can sympathise with the casual crowd that was alienated by this, I understand SRB2 Kart was largely famous for being a game that people can quickly pick up and stream, and mod to have any character they like, so I understand that brutally difficult Kart racer was probably not something they had any interest in, but man, this pushes all the right buttons for me.

Is it flawed? Undeniably. I'm sure you've already read that the tutorial is dogshit, and the items and CPUs can definitely be a bit much to handle. But in my opinion, it's super compelling. Substantial and fun singleplayer content, countless secrets, incredibly engaging races (NONE of them feel like autopiloting which is what I find a lot of Kart racers fall into) all compliment an incredibly fun to control driving system that, while yes is poorly taught to you, clicks faster than you'd think.

If you are a casual who just wants this game to be Mario Kart but with any character then you've probably already made up your mind and that's fair, I get why that's a desirable experience. For anyone else who has perhaps grown a bit tired of modern kart racing offerings feeling samey I implore you to give this a shot. Try to do at least the first few cups. I honestly kind of wanted to put this down after the first cup but I absolutely got hooked after I tried another cup and things started to click. Also, don't be afraid of the easy mode, it's there for a reason!

a bit of a throwback game obviously very inspired by games like Fatal Frame with the base gameplay being taking pictures of ghosts but also very inspired by Silent Hill 3 in ways I will not spoil also visually it looks like a ps2 game which I kind of like there is also a much bigger focus on an Indonesian setting and horror which is a nice departure for a genre that is so dominated by Japanese horror but it's still not an amazing game the combat is often more annoying than tense enemies attack patterns border on stun locking. there 3 acts 0,1,2 with 0 just being the tutorial/demo for the game it's a fairly short game which is for its own good tbh the first act is a pretty average fatal frame level walk around this place full of ghosts until you figure out the puzzle and get the key to get out nothing special but then act 2 is where the game gets experimental not in the way of experimenting with the genre more like experimental in the way that the devs didn't really know what to do and where just making stuff up as this act opens with like an uncharted type chase sequence lol but then the game has more dialogue despite being a lil cringe and they start experimenting more with the type of enemies and puzzles and It started growing on me despite some of its combat problems that most definitely did not get fixed act (I say this because act 2 came out about a year after act 1 even when you are playing this as one game you can like these 2 acts where made at completely different times) honestly I am curious to see how the sequels handle this world moving forward I hope they keep leaning in on the things that make it more unique like the weird enemies and focus on indionisian folklore/horror instead of just being a fatal frame rip off which act 1 very much felt like

Industria is a short half-life clone set in Germany, which is full of contrasts.
The game has a really immersive beginning but ends with an unsatisfying cliffhanger.
The game has a really intuitive level design but only has two good combat encounters.
The shooting is alright, but you are only shooting metal robots, which don't have that "cool impact feel."
The dialogues are decent, but the main protagonist voice actor is annoying at times.
The graphics are decent, but the game runs like trash.
Etc, etc...

In the end, despite the flaws, I enjoyed my time with the game, and the short length stopped the gameplay loop from becoming boring, but I wouldn't recommend this to anyone unless you are a Half-Life fan and really want to play a very similar game in a different setting.

Not nearly as mediocre as I remember it. In fact, Arkham Knight is a pretty decent conclusion to the Arkham-trilogy. The issues people had with it on release still ring true, especially compared to the previous games. Do I miss the Metroidvania-style of exploration? Sure. But in a vacuum it’s a solid action adventure.

The game has a severe case of Ubisoftitis (hey, it was the 2010s’; we just have to deal with it) and the map could’ve been shrunken down quite a bit. All the (optional) watchtowers, roadblocks and what have you get old fast. And Many hanging plot threads from previous games also get dealt with pretty haphazardly and as a result some side missions are underwhelming and, frankly, quite boring.

The largest problem I had with the game was the controls. But that was probably on account of me replaying the whole trilogy back-to-back. As Knight has the added Batmotank as a mode of transportation, the layout has shifted somewhat which takes some getting used to.

There’s also the fact that the timing, and hit detection of the free flow-combat is a little bit… off? What was perfectly imbedded in my muscle memory at the end of the last game suddenly feels a little bit stiff; as if Batman’s years of crime fighting have finally catched up with him (which works thematically with the story, I guess).

However I guess I’m in the minority here, but I enjoyed the AR-challenges and Riddler-shenanigans quite a bit. They’re a blast.

Building combo streaks and finding specific ways to take out henchmen and goons on the challange maps have been single most fun I’ve had with the Arkham-games. Knight has the added variety of races and tank battles which is a welcome change of pace.