Berfison
2024
Helldivers 2 is the best co-op shooter since Left 4 Dead. As someone who played the original on and off over the years, Helldivers 2 is essentially a high budget makeover of the first title, with the overarching mechanics and gameplay loop remaining identical. (The switch to 3rd person is welcomed).
The game can be a little overwhelming at first and really is only fun with atleast 2 other people, but that's a blessing in disguise as its not trying to appeal to everyone, like most modern AAA games. This is a cooperative shooter that emphasises teamwork beyond the surface level.
In a single mission you will be delegating side tasks, coordinating drone strikes and yelling at your friend for accidentally melting you with a flamethrower. Communication is actually important here, and since its PvE, the vibe is actually positive and not toxic.
Helldivers 2 kicks ass as a coop game, a sequel and a live service. For 40 dollars you're getting your money's worth and more. Just make sure you have a couple friends willing to dive with you.
The game can be a little overwhelming at first and really is only fun with atleast 2 other people, but that's a blessing in disguise as its not trying to appeal to everyone, like most modern AAA games. This is a cooperative shooter that emphasises teamwork beyond the surface level.
In a single mission you will be delegating side tasks, coordinating drone strikes and yelling at your friend for accidentally melting you with a flamethrower. Communication is actually important here, and since its PvE, the vibe is actually positive and not toxic.
Helldivers 2 kicks ass as a coop game, a sequel and a live service. For 40 dollars you're getting your money's worth and more. Just make sure you have a couple friends willing to dive with you.
2024
the exciting prequel to balatro wonderworld
2022
Anno Mutationem isn't very good, but its not that bad either. The incredible pixel art can't make up for an entirely predictable and derivative story (SCP in a cyberpunk setting but we kind of forget by the end and go generic sci-fi), horribly floaty and unsatisfying combat and a generic feeling of bugginess to everything.
It's not really a useful benchmark as its kind of obscure, but Cris Tales reminds me a lot of this game, where an indie team is made up of incredible artists that are let down by the rest of the team. Anno clearly doesn't feel like the product of a trained writer, and the gameplay feels like a student project. But damn if they can't make some nice screenshots. It is also playable front to back with decent pacing, has some fun side quest narratives and feels like someones directorial vision, as derivative as it is.
It's not really a useful benchmark as its kind of obscure, but Cris Tales reminds me a lot of this game, where an indie team is made up of incredible artists that are let down by the rest of the team. Anno clearly doesn't feel like the product of a trained writer, and the gameplay feels like a student project. But damn if they can't make some nice screenshots. It is also playable front to back with decent pacing, has some fun side quest narratives and feels like someones directorial vision, as derivative as it is.
When Sephiroth said "Do you know the way" and I burst out laughing, I realized I have the internet equivalent of Mako poisoning.
Historians in 200 years are going to have a hard time figuring out how this game got published. A meme idea that just works, as it offers all the joy of Zelda CDI and none of the heartache that comes with those games running on a DVD player.
2023
Dead Space is an excellent remake that adds and alters key shortcomings of the original game to make it the definitive experience. No more limited use key nodes, or awkward zero g and turret sections.
Every addition feels earned, like Issac's voice, the optional exploration and side quests, and the combat and gore is better than its ever been. In my opinion, the art style looks fantastic in its new fancy PS5 glory, although I admit to being wowed by Bluepoint games which I know a lot of people hate.
The only thing stopping this from being 5 stars is the unskippable cutscenes in a highly replayable action horror game. There is no bigger blueballs than listening to Kendra rant on and on before you can even open a door, and its genuinely annoying on repeat playthoughs; although on the other hand I played this game 3 times to platinum it in my month of EA Play, so its probably extra grating to me.
But on the other OTHER hand, I played this game 3 times back to back to back and enjoyed it each time. If that's not glowing praise I dont know what is.
Still a must play next gen title, and it feels like a 2023 release despite its 2008 origins.
Every addition feels earned, like Issac's voice, the optional exploration and side quests, and the combat and gore is better than its ever been. In my opinion, the art style looks fantastic in its new fancy PS5 glory, although I admit to being wowed by Bluepoint games which I know a lot of people hate.
The only thing stopping this from being 5 stars is the unskippable cutscenes in a highly replayable action horror game. There is no bigger blueballs than listening to Kendra rant on and on before you can even open a door, and its genuinely annoying on repeat playthoughs; although on the other hand I played this game 3 times to platinum it in my month of EA Play, so its probably extra grating to me.
But on the other OTHER hand, I played this game 3 times back to back to back and enjoyed it each time. If that's not glowing praise I dont know what is.
Still a must play next gen title, and it feels like a 2023 release despite its 2008 origins.
2024
TL;DR: Foamstars sucks big balls and isn't going to last 12 months
This isn't a Splatoon ripoff, if all Foamstars ended up being was "soulless Splatoon on PS5", I would actually recommend it because Nintendo online sucks balls.
But Foamstars is simply heavily inspired by Splatoon, without nabbing any of the fundamental ideas that make it work so well from its proverbial easter basket. For one, painting the map in foam is a secondary objective in the way getting kills in a Splatoon turf war is secondary to map coverage. This is a mistake, as it leads players to priortize zerg rushing a single player, terrain be damned to cheese a kill. And since the amount of lives a team gets is pathetically low, isolating and picking off individual players as one homogenous blob of DPS is the winning method in every mode.
The game is way too chaotic and messy to employ different playstyles other than pure aggression, because when its as hard as it is to notice a dying team mate flashing on your hud, imagine trying to work a healer into the game.
The game is fine aethestically. The character designs are bland and forgettable, nothing can be customized without ridiculous 15 dollar skins (remember when earning these randomly for free in a loot crate was outrageous?) and the map designs are gaudy and hard on the eyes. The music isn't my cup of tea, but I can see people liking it if they like the Splatoon music. (I know you guys exist...right?)
When the core gameplay is as fucked as it is, nothing can save Foamstars from its inevitable early grave. Taking Splatoon and focusing on kills rather than teamwork and making the PvP as awkward and gross to play as it is means the game is broken at its core. And don't get me started on the payload mode, where I went 15-1 and pushed the cart but didn't feel like I contributed at all since game is visual diarrhea.
Foamstars is one of many Square Enix games that is so soulless its hard to imagine anyone pitching the idea in the first place, except a boring Japanese sod who works 16 hours a day.
This isn't a Splatoon ripoff, if all Foamstars ended up being was "soulless Splatoon on PS5", I would actually recommend it because Nintendo online sucks balls.
But Foamstars is simply heavily inspired by Splatoon, without nabbing any of the fundamental ideas that make it work so well from its proverbial easter basket. For one, painting the map in foam is a secondary objective in the way getting kills in a Splatoon turf war is secondary to map coverage. This is a mistake, as it leads players to priortize zerg rushing a single player, terrain be damned to cheese a kill. And since the amount of lives a team gets is pathetically low, isolating and picking off individual players as one homogenous blob of DPS is the winning method in every mode.
The game is way too chaotic and messy to employ different playstyles other than pure aggression, because when its as hard as it is to notice a dying team mate flashing on your hud, imagine trying to work a healer into the game.
The game is fine aethestically. The character designs are bland and forgettable, nothing can be customized without ridiculous 15 dollar skins (remember when earning these randomly for free in a loot crate was outrageous?) and the map designs are gaudy and hard on the eyes. The music isn't my cup of tea, but I can see people liking it if they like the Splatoon music. (I know you guys exist...right?)
When the core gameplay is as fucked as it is, nothing can save Foamstars from its inevitable early grave. Taking Splatoon and focusing on kills rather than teamwork and making the PvP as awkward and gross to play as it is means the game is broken at its core. And don't get me started on the payload mode, where I went 15-1 and pushed the cart but didn't feel like I contributed at all since game is visual diarrhea.
Foamstars is one of many Square Enix games that is so soulless its hard to imagine anyone pitching the idea in the first place, except a boring Japanese sod who works 16 hours a day.
1996
Aside from the obvious terrible "Jump Jump Slide Slide" trial and error sections (which make up about 4 minutes of game), and the way the game lies about saving mid Wily Castle, Mega Man 8 is the best looking, deepest and most exciting game in the series since 3.
It has its weaknesses, namely a floatier and less precise feel to the platforming comapred to the NES games, but it really doesn't affect the game much once you get used to it. The shmup bits are pretty fun and the level design feels way less annoying than 7, with a surprisingly well implemented mid stage checkpoint to make up for the somewhat longer stages to mitigate frustration.
The cutscenes look fantastic and the voice acting is wonderfully awful. It's melodramatic, its good vs evil, it's a Mega Man plot with a little bit more, like a decent ending for once. A massive step up from 7 and honestly rivals 3 for my second favorite Mega Man.
I am a little disappointed the PS2 version doesn't have the Saturn content, though. It does seem a little tacked on just looking at it, but I'd love to have a little more Mega Man with these aesthetics and controls.
It has its weaknesses, namely a floatier and less precise feel to the platforming comapred to the NES games, but it really doesn't affect the game much once you get used to it. The shmup bits are pretty fun and the level design feels way less annoying than 7, with a surprisingly well implemented mid stage checkpoint to make up for the somewhat longer stages to mitigate frustration.
The cutscenes look fantastic and the voice acting is wonderfully awful. It's melodramatic, its good vs evil, it's a Mega Man plot with a little bit more, like a decent ending for once. A massive step up from 7 and honestly rivals 3 for my second favorite Mega Man.
I am a little disappointed the PS2 version doesn't have the Saturn content, though. It does seem a little tacked on just looking at it, but I'd love to have a little more Mega Man with these aesthetics and controls.
If the missions didn't all play the same and go on way too long, this could be a perfect dogfighting game. And I'm sure the future Ace Combat games solved this issue from the looks of things, but man oh man does it sour the initial campaign experience.
On one hand, the reliance on air to ground combat and missions that last 20 minutes with no checkpoints is straight up exhausting. It's by no means hard on Normal difficulty, which makes it all the worse when you fuck up 30 seconds from completion and have to do the same repetitive pillbox bombing to see more story. It doesn't help that 90% of missions have the same structure and lack exciting setpieces. On the other hand, it looks great, controls super well and has an amazing story that is more or less completely disconnected from the actual missions. (You can split hairs about this)
My recommendation? Pick up Ace Combat 5 or 7 and watch this games cutscenes on Youtube. Or at the very least, start with a later entry and come back to this if you get obsessed, because its still solid fun.
On one hand, the reliance on air to ground combat and missions that last 20 minutes with no checkpoints is straight up exhausting. It's by no means hard on Normal difficulty, which makes it all the worse when you fuck up 30 seconds from completion and have to do the same repetitive pillbox bombing to see more story. It doesn't help that 90% of missions have the same structure and lack exciting setpieces. On the other hand, it looks great, controls super well and has an amazing story that is more or less completely disconnected from the actual missions. (You can split hairs about this)
My recommendation? Pick up Ace Combat 5 or 7 and watch this games cutscenes on Youtube. Or at the very least, start with a later entry and come back to this if you get obsessed, because its still solid fun.
2001
Playing Grand Theft Auto 3 is a lot like doing copy paste side missions in a modern AAA game without any of the QoL features; like not having to drive across the map to restart a failed mission, or memorize every corner of the map to know where essential shops are.
GTA3 has a cookie cutter narrative with faceless characters and a lack of motivation to see what happens next. You go from mob faction to faction doing basic drive here and shoot the guy missions, or worse yet, lengthy car chases where your car explodes in 2 hits.
If the story was decent and mission design was acceptable beyond being a 3D recreation of what was esssentially an arcade game, I could recommend it. The cars handle well enough, graphics are dated but still look perfectly fine, and the voice work is charming. But for god's sake just play Vice City and San Andreas, because GTA3 is about as exciting as its real life equivalent: a concrete foundation. Essential, but not something a normal person should think about.
GTA3 has a cookie cutter narrative with faceless characters and a lack of motivation to see what happens next. You go from mob faction to faction doing basic drive here and shoot the guy missions, or worse yet, lengthy car chases where your car explodes in 2 hits.
If the story was decent and mission design was acceptable beyond being a 3D recreation of what was esssentially an arcade game, I could recommend it. The cars handle well enough, graphics are dated but still look perfectly fine, and the voice work is charming. But for god's sake just play Vice City and San Andreas, because GTA3 is about as exciting as its real life equivalent: a concrete foundation. Essential, but not something a normal person should think about.
2020
If you're like me and see the mid reception of this game and think "well, the graphics are pretty and it seems pretty chill, so I'll try it out", this review is for you.
I tried so hard to like this game, but it is the definition of style over substance and is one of the biggest indie sophomore slumps I've seen.
Haven is a video game where you check boxes. Mindlessly glide around a bland land mass of colored grass and clean up gunk, fight the same 5 enemies over and over with a shallow combat system, and gather ingredients to cook recipes that don't offer any useful bonus other than checking a box.
Aside from the co-op, this game doesn't have anything to offer. If you want to spend time with your significant other, turn off the fucking TV and go for a walk. This game isn't worth any level of eye strain and while the interactions of Yu and Kay are a rare great example of good communication and mutual respect in a relationship, they're too horny and childish to enjoy listening to.
I struggle to think of one thing I actually enjoyed from my time with Haven. The art direction is bland, the music is forgettable, and the gameplay is straight up bad with zero variety in strategy. The relentless backtracking and loading screens (paired with fast travel that requires consumables) are tedious and kill the pacing. Even the one unique selling point, the relatively emotionally intelligent protagonists lean way too hard into typical anime tropes with a (excuse while I puke) "western" twist. Maybe the story is a positive, ad there's some good sunday school morals at play here, but the pacing to get there (in a 10 hour game, no less) is brutal.
I rate it two stars in a vaccum, if there are no other games vying for your time, this is just flawed and boring rather than offensively bad, so I'll give it that as a win.
I tried so hard to like this game, but it is the definition of style over substance and is one of the biggest indie sophomore slumps I've seen.
Haven is a video game where you check boxes. Mindlessly glide around a bland land mass of colored grass and clean up gunk, fight the same 5 enemies over and over with a shallow combat system, and gather ingredients to cook recipes that don't offer any useful bonus other than checking a box.
Aside from the co-op, this game doesn't have anything to offer. If you want to spend time with your significant other, turn off the fucking TV and go for a walk. This game isn't worth any level of eye strain and while the interactions of Yu and Kay are a rare great example of good communication and mutual respect in a relationship, they're too horny and childish to enjoy listening to.
I struggle to think of one thing I actually enjoyed from my time with Haven. The art direction is bland, the music is forgettable, and the gameplay is straight up bad with zero variety in strategy. The relentless backtracking and loading screens (paired with fast travel that requires consumables) are tedious and kill the pacing. Even the one unique selling point, the relatively emotionally intelligent protagonists lean way too hard into typical anime tropes with a (excuse while I puke) "western" twist. Maybe the story is a positive, ad there's some good sunday school morals at play here, but the pacing to get there (in a 10 hour game, no less) is brutal.
I rate it two stars in a vaccum, if there are no other games vying for your time, this is just flawed and boring rather than offensively bad, so I'll give it that as a win.
2003
Beyond Good and Evil has been a bit of a mythical game for me. Ever since I was a kid reading Nintendo Power, I've known about how good it allegedly is, and now that I've played it?
It's about as good as a 2003 semi-open world game can get. That's not exactly glowing praise, but the game is really solid in a lot of places. The world design is incredibly creative, leaning into sci-fi and cyberpunk just enough without feeling like a lazy pastiche of established media tropes. The music is great too, going from reggae, metal, latin, or whatever the mood calls for without feeling pigeonholed into "generic orchestrral score". It's Christophe Héral at his best.
So on the whole, it's artistically fantastic, especially for 2003. It feels at least 4 years ahead of its time graphically and has aged really well. The gameplay, however, is really just about fine. Combat is simple, mash A and rarely dodge an attack with B. Stealth is either too easy or obnoxious depending on if you get insta killed for getting seen. It's not very well done stealth gameplay, frankly.
The main two issues with the game for me are the by the numbers story and (less importantly), the forced widescreen on a Gamecube game that doesn't fill the screen on a CRT or an HDTV. So enjoy 3/4 of your screen as much as possible. The story, though, is about the most basic conspiracy plot you'll see. Government colluding with evil aliens, you spend the game gathering photo evidence and instantly get your rebel army for the end boss. The title of "Beyond Good and Evil" is a bit misleading given how binary the concept is in-game. But I liked the characters and world enough to look past it.
Since Beyond Good and Evil 2 is officially vaporware, I'm a little miffed about the rushed sequel hook ending as well. All they needed to do was put some more satisfying closure shots on Hillys and remove that post credits scene and it would be fine.
Beyond Good and Evil is worth playing out of respect for Michel Ancel's direction, even if the actual game is just a short Zelda with less interesting gameplay and a rushed final act.
It's about as good as a 2003 semi-open world game can get. That's not exactly glowing praise, but the game is really solid in a lot of places. The world design is incredibly creative, leaning into sci-fi and cyberpunk just enough without feeling like a lazy pastiche of established media tropes. The music is great too, going from reggae, metal, latin, or whatever the mood calls for without feeling pigeonholed into "generic orchestrral score". It's Christophe Héral at his best.
So on the whole, it's artistically fantastic, especially for 2003. It feels at least 4 years ahead of its time graphically and has aged really well. The gameplay, however, is really just about fine. Combat is simple, mash A and rarely dodge an attack with B. Stealth is either too easy or obnoxious depending on if you get insta killed for getting seen. It's not very well done stealth gameplay, frankly.
The main two issues with the game for me are the by the numbers story and (less importantly), the forced widescreen on a Gamecube game that doesn't fill the screen on a CRT or an HDTV. So enjoy 3/4 of your screen as much as possible. The story, though, is about the most basic conspiracy plot you'll see. Government colluding with evil aliens, you spend the game gathering photo evidence and instantly get your rebel army for the end boss. The title of "Beyond Good and Evil" is a bit misleading given how binary the concept is in-game. But I liked the characters and world enough to look past it.
Since Beyond Good and Evil 2 is officially vaporware, I'm a little miffed about the rushed sequel hook ending as well. All they needed to do was put some more satisfying closure shots on Hillys and remove that post credits scene and it would be fine.
Beyond Good and Evil is worth playing out of respect for Michel Ancel's direction, even if the actual game is just a short Zelda with less interesting gameplay and a rushed final act.
2018
Mega Man 11 decides to boldly follow up where Mega Man 8 left off, but swapping the beautiful spritework for cheap 3D models. What we get is an average new Mega Man game with a new gimmick that fucks up the game balance in the form of Double Gear.
For the first time in Mega Man history, you can use an incredibly generous slow mo feature to run through difficult platforming stages before enemies can even attack. It's the problem many a sequel has, by giving the character new moves, they end up making it easier.
The only way to band aid the low difficulty is to add the odd advancing wall of death room that's easy with double gear and borderline impossible without. These rooms aside, the levels are typical, often annoying but never overly difficult compared to NES Mega Man.
By making an "easy" Mega Man game, it led me to discover that the perfect challenge level is what makes Mega Man classic so good, and the slightest of tampering weakens it by a lot. I just kind of blazed through it on normal, and didn't enjoy double gear or the level design enough to want to go back. I'd try a one hit kill mode, but not with the dumb decision to bring back limited lives to the applause of absolutely no one.
At the end of the day, it's still an average Mega Man game, and despite feeling outdated, its still a fun way to spend 3-4 hours. And to Capcom's credit, they didn't fuck up the gamefeel which I'm sure wasn't easy. Still better than 7 on the Mega ranking.
(Backloggd is not ready to tell me what makes this game good and Mighty No 9 bad when the flaws are the same across both games)
For the first time in Mega Man history, you can use an incredibly generous slow mo feature to run through difficult platforming stages before enemies can even attack. It's the problem many a sequel has, by giving the character new moves, they end up making it easier.
The only way to band aid the low difficulty is to add the odd advancing wall of death room that's easy with double gear and borderline impossible without. These rooms aside, the levels are typical, often annoying but never overly difficult compared to NES Mega Man.
By making an "easy" Mega Man game, it led me to discover that the perfect challenge level is what makes Mega Man classic so good, and the slightest of tampering weakens it by a lot. I just kind of blazed through it on normal, and didn't enjoy double gear or the level design enough to want to go back. I'd try a one hit kill mode, but not with the dumb decision to bring back limited lives to the applause of absolutely no one.
At the end of the day, it's still an average Mega Man game, and despite feeling outdated, its still a fun way to spend 3-4 hours. And to Capcom's credit, they didn't fuck up the gamefeel which I'm sure wasn't easy. Still better than 7 on the Mega ranking.
(Backloggd is not ready to tell me what makes this game good and Mighty No 9 bad when the flaws are the same across both games)
2020
This is easily the dumbest "dumb fun" game I've played. Maneater knows you don't want to play a shark game and get your ass kicked, so it just lets you loose in a low stakes open world with a nice, linear progression of growing bigger.
It could have worked well by starting you off in the deep end as a baby shark and having you dodging whales and great whites, but I'm happy with the straight power fantasy Tripwire put out. There's nothing complicated here, what you see is what you get, and I' not really sure why the score for this is so low.
The game's A&E reality show stylings are also good fun, giving the game's antagonist the same energy as the Yup guy from Storage Wars. As in, an unlikeable asshole you want to eat. No other game to my knowledge has done this, so I give it points for originality.
The game's only real glaring flaw is the obnoxious land controls, where you flail around on the beach trying to eat people. It works on a big open beach, but when you're navigating the pleasure pier and there's a million indestructible objects making you stuck, it can be frustrating as you don't really have much control over getting unstuck. The combat is also jank as fuck, but it's all worth it once you've bitten all the fins off and get to grab and shake the last bit of life from your much bigger prey.
Do you want to play a Jaws video game with a relatively satisfying progression system? Do you mind a comedy game that's saturated with pop culture references and visual gags? Are you OK with a power fantasy game with a low challenge level? If yes, pick it up on one of its many deep discounts.
It could have worked well by starting you off in the deep end as a baby shark and having you dodging whales and great whites, but I'm happy with the straight power fantasy Tripwire put out. There's nothing complicated here, what you see is what you get, and I' not really sure why the score for this is so low.
The game's A&E reality show stylings are also good fun, giving the game's antagonist the same energy as the Yup guy from Storage Wars. As in, an unlikeable asshole you want to eat. No other game to my knowledge has done this, so I give it points for originality.
The game's only real glaring flaw is the obnoxious land controls, where you flail around on the beach trying to eat people. It works on a big open beach, but when you're navigating the pleasure pier and there's a million indestructible objects making you stuck, it can be frustrating as you don't really have much control over getting unstuck. The combat is also jank as fuck, but it's all worth it once you've bitten all the fins off and get to grab and shake the last bit of life from your much bigger prey.
Do you want to play a Jaws video game with a relatively satisfying progression system? Do you mind a comedy game that's saturated with pop culture references and visual gags? Are you OK with a power fantasy game with a low challenge level? If yes, pick it up on one of its many deep discounts.
2016
Definitely derivative of Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy X, but I Am Setsuna manages to stand out as a chill, comfy JRPG holiday special. Unfortunately, the shoestring budget makes it feel inadequate as a sit down TV experience.
I love the idea of the piano only soundtrack, as it gives the game a somber, lonely vibe as you adventure across a dying, permanently blizzarding hellscape, no doubt a fantastical stand in for the Canadian prairies. It doesnt hit right all the time, though. Serious events or any moments of action are underplayed because of a lack of voice acting and some harsh staccato piano key smashing. But that's part of being experimental; you can't get it all perfect.
The game's combat is fun and strategic, even if the difficulty is low. It's basically just Chrono Trigger, so...if it aint broke, dont fix it. The main addition are "fluxations", which are permanent buffs to your materia stand-ins. You get them completely randomly, and you can go the whole game without getting a fluxation on one of your moves. It's supposed to reward you for using a move repeatedly but the rate is far too low, and the payoff unrewarding.
At 14 hours (20 to 100%), it's a great choice for the holiday season because of the winter theme and general cozy vibe of everything. A solid 7, but definitely could have been a lot better with voice acting and cutscenes.
I love the idea of the piano only soundtrack, as it gives the game a somber, lonely vibe as you adventure across a dying, permanently blizzarding hellscape, no doubt a fantastical stand in for the Canadian prairies. It doesnt hit right all the time, though. Serious events or any moments of action are underplayed because of a lack of voice acting and some harsh staccato piano key smashing. But that's part of being experimental; you can't get it all perfect.
The game's combat is fun and strategic, even if the difficulty is low. It's basically just Chrono Trigger, so...if it aint broke, dont fix it. The main addition are "fluxations", which are permanent buffs to your materia stand-ins. You get them completely randomly, and you can go the whole game without getting a fluxation on one of your moves. It's supposed to reward you for using a move repeatedly but the rate is far too low, and the payoff unrewarding.
At 14 hours (20 to 100%), it's a great choice for the holiday season because of the winter theme and general cozy vibe of everything. A solid 7, but definitely could have been a lot better with voice acting and cutscenes.