Circus Electrique is a game that wears it's inspiration on it's sleeve.

As a more accessible Darkest Dungeon set in a Victorian steampunk world you play the role of Amelia Craig, a journalist returning to the newly opened 'Circus Electrique'. The circus is run by your uncle Randolph, a man she blames for her mothers death. Finding herself coming to a place she vowed never to return to at the same time as London is beset by 'the maddening' where people are turning vicious and attack for no reason leaves Amelia and the members of the Circus left to find out what is causing it.

The story premise is actually pretty good overall and some of the characters are well realized but it does take time to truly get anywhere and revelations fell a little flat or were predictable with a truly nothing of an ending final scene really deflating the entire experience. In a similar vein the gameplay initially seems interesting mixing circus management and exploration and combat. Despite London's current event 'the show must go on!' after all. However it feels overly drawn out towards the end with no variation leaving it feeling rather rote.

Initially the circus shows must be set up meaning you have to split your characters into two teams, the circus performers who will put on a show and the circus combatants who will explore outside on a tile like map in regions of London. Each battle counts as a day completed which will often also complete the show. Each show requires certain stats to preform (music, awe, happiness and whatever the other symbol means) and will gain certain resources and rewards at the end depending on how you do. Each member of the circus you recruit has different stats and requires resource to level up skills or even food to maintain. Even on hard however these resources were coming out of my ears to the point I had 2.5k food and used 15 a day n the final chapter. It all became rather meaningless.

Each troupe members vocation is their combat class in battle. Clown, Strongman, Snake Charmer, Belly dancer, Juggler, Ventriloquist, Acrobat etc. The character designs for each class are pretty good though I must admit. They had a very stylized almost caricature version of circus performers from that era that are pretty striking. Each class has different skills and even among the same class there is some variation on both skills and circus stats. They get recruited from a random pool you can refresh meaning to get the best characters for what you want to build party wise involves a lot of save scumming for the RNG or just making do. Exploring the map aside from battles will reveal scenarios to choose from for the right answers for prizes and you can choose different paths that you can then later replay. It's all kind of the same though and the lack of variety is really felt including in combat where I used the same team for most of the game. It felt like I was just going through the motions by the end.

Aside from dragging a little and the disappointing ending I had other issues too with trophies just not unlocking for no reason and though I reset the game and got some of them at least one is completely locked out meaning I would need to do a full playthrough again to obtain which further soured me at the end on the whole affair.

Overall the Circus Electrique isn't a bad game however, in fact aspects of it are good both mechanically and artistically but it's missing that headline act for a really sell out experience. Still if you ever though Darkest Dungeon was too hard and what you really want is to see a clown throw a ball at a robot bear then this might be the game for you.

+ Nice premise.
+ I like the character and art designs.

- Ending was kinda disappointing.
- Gets stale towards the end.
- I experienced some trophy bugs.

Pretty mixed feelings on this one where I’m not sure if an original controller would have made me like it better, to be honest. I think I decided I was done after I used up all my healing items and was tossed into a gauntlet with endlessly respawning enemies that had you trying to navigate flame jets while wind constantly blew you to the right. I kind of got the impression that it wouldn’t exactly get better from there, exactly, so I decided I was done.

I think the presentation here is really great, actually. While the plot itself isn’t anything groundbreaking it did its job to set me off on the adventure, and I was pretty struck by how nice the opening cutscene looked, and the soundtrack… is trying, even if the sound chip isn’t up to snuff for what this is trying to do. The sprites and animations are also really nice!

I’m not sure how I feel about the combat, though, as I’m not really used to beat ‘em ups. I think I had a little trouble figuring out what registered as quick taps and full presses, so pulling off some moves could be a little tough. The spirits were kind of a neat idea, but I found them a little unreliable both due to the genre unfamiliarity problems and the fact that they wouldn’t really keep up with Ali if you ran too fast. I only managed to get the first two, but I was kind of intrigued how differently they operated and was curious to see what the final two would be… but not enough to keep powering through. I also just kind of hated jumping, and the double tap run felt considerably weirder to control than other instances where it’s been the control scheme.

I think this game is definitely for someone, though, even if it’s not for me. I don’t know, I mostly wish there were a few more cute little towns and cities to break things up at a certain point… maybe that would’ve kept me going instead of just feeling like I was slogging through.

I walked away enjoying this far more than Golden Axe and the first SOR. It's a bit faster paced and you have the ability to run as well as dodge roll which makes it feel surprisingly modern for an early brawler. The on-rails shooting sections also help break up the monotony that plagues even the best in the genre- the final boss being set up this way really took me by surprise.

It can still play a little dirty in some spots as it is a port of an arcade quarter muncher (I just like saying that because I know it triggers elitists like Mark from the electric underground haha). For instance, there were spots in those aforementioned shooting sections where taking damage seemed inevitable as you're using a slow moving cursor. At least there aren't bosses who can one shot or chop your life bar in half like SOR or anything remotely close to the bullshit that is Golden Axe's magic spamming final boss.

Despite its problems, I think this may be one of my favorite early titles on the Genny alongside GnG and the fantastic port of forgotten worlds.

Pac-Pix represents one of the most unique games in the Pac-Man series and a good showcase early in the Nintendo DS’s lifespan. It is these simple, pick up and play titles that made the DS at launch an eye catching handheld from the console style games that the Game Boy Advance & PlayStation Portable brought to the table. It’s a cute game that gradually adds new ways to draw, chomp, and guide Pac-Man through this book adventure.
I feel that people tend to forget that early DS had a handful of mobile style games sold at retail price. It’s what seemingly along repetition that made Pac-Pix get bashed by critics then and even nowadays. To me, in its hour and a half runtime, Pac-Pix sets out to showcase everything it needs to do with a creative artifact aesthetic, bubbly soundtrack, and a fun game that only was possible on the Nintendo DS. Woah that’s a big Pac-Man you drew there…

It’s about time I made a review of the game whose main character is literally my profile picture.

…wait.

Hazelnut Hex has always been a game that just hit all the right buttons for me. Even as far back as when the game was announced on Nintendo’s Youtube channel, Hazelnut Hex intrigued me, especially as someone who was (and still is) obsessed with Touhou, but rarely got to actually play those games. That, alongside the game’s gorgeous presentation and charming premise, made Hazelnut Hex one of the games I looked forward to the most in 2022, and I am still absolutely thrilled to say that Hazelnut Hex did not disappoint. This is genuinely one of my all-time favorite games to play and revisit. And upon finally beating the game’s Moderate mode, I figured it was finally time to share everything that made me love this game so much, and why it’s stuck with me even after first playing it.

The first thing I want to cover is the game’s fantastic presentation. Like, everything about this game’s presentation is absolutely stellar. The catchy music, the artstyle, the character and enemy designs, the arcadey feel you get from playing the game, nearly every detail in this game feels like it has a ton of love poured into it. Hell, at the very start of the game, you get a screen referencing the “winners don’t do drugs” messages you’d see in US arcade machines, but instead it says, “Winner’s don’t skip breakfast”, which I think is just so damn genius and fits in so well thematically with the rest of the game. Hazelnut Hex is loaded with charming moments like this. The game’s boss dialogue, while short, was filled with little moments that made me chuckle, and as a pun enthusiast, it was fun seeing basically every enemy being named after a pun. However, I feel like where this game succeeds the most in terms of presentation is its art style. As a cute-em-up, the game definitely needs to strive for a cute artstyle, and Hazelnut Hex’s artstyle is just absolutely perfect for this. Everything is completely coated in pastel colors and drenched with purple outlines, and it all just looks incredibly pleasant without being too in your face. The way everything is designed ups the charm factor for me as well, specifically the characters and enemies. Even though a lot of the main characters show up pretty briefly, I found all of them to be memorable with great designs and fun personalities. My favorites are probably Jules and ESPECIALLY Nat. Words cannot DESCRIBE just how much I love Nat as a character, but I’ll probably save that for like a “favorite characters” list or something. The enemies have such cool designs and they’re animated so well, like, Chunderfins, my guy, did you have to go so damn hard on something that’s gonna appear for like, 3 seconds on screen? Also, I’m sorry, but can I just talk about how fucking FIRE this game’s soundtrack is? Just listen to Stage 5’s theme and you'll have a good idea on how fantastic this game’s soundtrack is. Honestly, I could go on and on about how much care and charm was put into this game’s presentation, but we’d be here all day, and we still have a whole game to talk about. You might wonder why I’d put so much focus on an aspect of the game that’s ultimately trivial compared to, you know, the actual game. But as I’ve mentioned in my Cat Girl Without Salad review, presentation still plays a pretty important role when it comes down to making games. When it comes down to it, Hazelnut Hex’s entire aesthetic and vibe played a huge part in why it stuck with me to this day. Overall, this game just absolutely nails the cute-em-up aesthetic, but has such an immensely charming identity that I can’t say I’ve seen in really any other game. Like Cat Girl Without Salad, the presentation really could carry this game alone, but I’ve gushed about it for long enough. How does the gameplay itself hold up?

Gameplay-wise, Hazelnut Hex is what you’d expect from your average Touhou-like shooter. You have your 3 different shot types, screen clearing bombs, the usual bullet hell fare. You also get a charge shot which, from what I know, is unique to Hazelnut Hex. It’s a really cool (albeit somewhat overpowered) mechanic, which allows you to charge up a shot that can pierce through bullets if you aren’t currently shooting. It can be really handy for people new to these games, but it can also be pretty risk-reward at times since you aren't shooting while charging up the shot, which is pretty nice. Aside from that though, that’s basically Hazelnut Hex’s gameplay. What you see is pretty much what you get. There isn’t too much setting Hazelnut Hex apart from your typical bullet hell at first glance, however, I don’t think this is a bad thing. Hazelnut Hex isn’t trying to be something super groundbreaking or introduce any new concepts, it’s just meant to be a really solid shooter game with a charming artstyle. what it may lack in totally unique concepts, it more than makes up for with its incredibly solid gameplay.

Rather than trying to establish something new in the cute-em-up genre, Hazelnut Hex takes what was already fun and polishes and refines it to an insane degree. This might be one of the most polished and well-designed games I think I’ve ever played. Seriously, I can’t think of a single section in this game that I disliked even a little bit, it’s just that fun. The flow of these stages are also immaculate. It’s so much fun to blast through enemies quickly once you’ve become accustomed to the game, and even if you haven’t, they’re still very fun to go through and are really well-paced. Simply put, it’s just a good, clean, fun experience. However… this is kind of where it starts to get hard to write about this game. Because Hazelnut Hex relies on its polish and great flow as opposed to something super standoff-ish (aside from its aesthetics and music), it’s kind of hard to write about what exactly I love about Hazelnut Hex without mentioning things that just apply to a great bullet hell game in general. Like, what would I write about that wouldn’t already apply to, say, Touhou 8, a game with a ton of polish in its patterns as well, yet also contains a player-swap mechanic? I don’t know, but I guess it can’t really be helped, so I’ll try to explain my love for this genre as best as I can. Please bear with me here!

One thing I love about Hazelnut Hex (and the bullet hell / cute-em-up genre as a whole), is that it can be really difficult to grasp at first due to the insane amounts of bullets on screen, but over time you eventually grow to learn the enemies’ patterns and mechanics, and can get to a point where you’ve mastered certain sections. Even the first stage can be overwhelming to someone who hasn’t gotten used to the game yet, as it has a ton of bullets flying towards you, and while it’s not so overwhelming as to make the first section nearly impossible, it can still be intimidating and take some time to get used to. However, as you make more attempts through the stages, you eventually get to learn more about what the stages themselves hold, how to deal with certain enemies, more about the mechanics of the game, and over time, you feel more of an incentive to get better and better at the stages. Hazelnut Hex in particular does such a fantastic job in allowing people to get more accustomed to its mechanics, which is why I think it’s a perfect bullet hell game for those entering into the genre. Like I mentioned earlier, Hazelnut Hex’s charge shot is a perfect tool for people new to these games, and can take a lot of the pressure off by removing a lot of what’s going on the screen. Plus, the game has unlimited continues, so you can beat the whole game in one go and see everything before coming back to it. Still, even with all of these helpful features, Hazelnut Hex still lends itself to being quite challenging. Bullet hells are, well, still bullet hells, and because there’s a lot of stuff flying on the screen, they require a lot of reflexes in order to avoid getting hit as much as possible. Even when you’ve mastered everything the level has to offer, you still have to put it into action, but when you’ve gotten to a point where you can finally zigzag past all those bullet patterns that intimidated you in the first level, you’re left with such a satisfying feeling that I couldn’t do justice through description alone. But I think what I love most about bullet hells is just how replayable they are. They don’t even have to have that much content in them, just having consistently fun dodging and shooting gameplay is going to make me seriously want to come back to them. They’re incredibly addicting and I really can’t tell you why. But there’s also something about bullet hells that make me want to get better at them and learn about their more nuanced mechanics. For example, Hazelnut Hex has a mechanic that they don’t explicitly mention, where the closer you are to an enemy, the more damage you’ll do to them, which is just such a fun thing to be able to put into practice. There’s a ton of other things like this that keep you coming back to it, like the game’s Moderate mode, genuinely one of the best Hard modes I’ve ever played in a game. Even little things like getting the boss dodge bonus (defeating a boss without using the charge shot) at the end of a boss battle make me want to come back and hone my craft even more. I don’t know what it is about the bullet hell genre in particular that makes me want to come back to it so often, but frankly, I’m not complaining, because each time I do, I have a ton of fun.

Though, now that I’ve talked about why I love bullet hells as a genre, what does this have to do with Hazelnut Hex in particular? Well, I say this because Hazelnut Hex captures all of these feelings perfectly and encapsulates everything I love about this genre. Sure, you’re going to struggle a bit as you first play it, and even when you’ve beaten the game, you’ve lost a ton of continues. But as you keep playing the game, you’re going to start to get more of a feel for it, until you reach that point where you can finally triumph over the game, and even when you do, you’ve had such a fun time that you still want to come back for even more. That’s what I love most about Hazelnut Hex.

Before I finish up this review, there are a few nitpicks I want to get out of the way. As much as I love Hazelnut Hex, it’s not perfect (I mean, no game is). So I’d just like to go over a few of its flaws that I’d like to see being fixed if Chunderfins ever decides to make a sequel to this game or even just another shmup in general. For one, this game is pretty damn short, only having 5 stages. While I’ve stated in the past that I typically prefer shorter games as opposed to longer ones, Hazelnut Hex is one of the few games that made me kinda sad that there wasn’t more, especially since in terms of extra content, you really only have Moderate mode to go off of. At first, I was thinking a sixth stage might’ve fixed this problem for me, as the main villain, Lamona, kinda just shows up out of nowhere at the end of Stage 5. However, as I’ve played more and more of Hazelnut Hex, I’ve started to realize that the main campaign is pretty well paced as is. I still think a 6th stage would’ve been cool, but I’d prefer something like an Extra Stage like in Touhou Project, as it keeps the main campaign flowing well while also giving players some new content. I think an Extra Stage would be cool to see in a non-Touhou game, maybe for this stage we could fight Ghost Lamona. I think that’d be pretty cool. There’s only one other issues with this game that I think is really worth mentioning, and that’s that the shot types are kiiinda lame? There’s 3 shot types, but there’s not much of a change between the three aside from range and speed, so you’re typically just gonna go with the one with bigger range. The 3 shot types definitely should’ve had more differences to each other, maybe one of them could have homing properties, one of them has low range but deals more damage, and the other could be your standard shot type. I really only changed one, but I think that would be enough, because this shot type lineup needs just a little bit more variety to make it great. Other than that, though, those are basically my nitpicks with the game. They’re really minor, and don’t do anything to ruin the game even a little bit, but I still felt like they were worth mentioning.

And with that, that’s all I have to say about Hazelnut Hex! This was definitely one of my more… rambly reviews on this site, but I really can’t help it. If you couldn’t tell already, Hazelnut Hex is a game I’m immensely passionate about, and something about it definitely latched on to me ever since I first played it back in late 2022. I really can’t recommend this game enough, especially since words can’t describe how much I think this game rocks. I absolutely implore you to try this game out for yourself. It might not live rent free in your head like it does for me, but even if you only plan on playing it once, I can confirm that you’ll definitely have a great time with it. (9.5/10)

Before we finish, I want to give a HUGE shoutout to @Phantasm for helping me put together this review and for fixing it up. Absolutely give them a follow as they’ve been a great help and make excellent reviews. With that, that’s basically all I have to say for now. I’ll see y’all in the inevitable Owl House: Witch’s Apprentice review.