This is one of those situations where I don't know why this game is in my Steam library, but I've purchased enough bundles over the years and this seems to be one of those games that you get from some bundle somewhere. Either way, if you have this in your library and haven't played it yet, please do.

The pitch for Valfaris is that it's a Contra-style run-and-gun but with metal music, stop motion-style animation, more forgiving checkpoints, and a much greater focus on biomechanical creatures. It looks and sounds wonderful.

This is a pretty tough game -- the end boss took me an hour or so to beat -- but it's very well designed. Valfaris gives me the type of experience I always wanted out of a Contra game. Tough-but-fair action, great-feeling guns, sick bosses, and a rip-roaring power fantasy.

It is a game that gets dramatically close to 5 stars if not for a back chunk that features both a small difficulty spike and a couple levels that go on and on. Worth playing and I fully recommend it, but with that asterisk.

Going to buy its new sequel either at full price or the next time it goes on sale to support the developers.

Completion Criteria: Story Mode (Normal)

I've played a couple of 2D Beat'em ups. Nothing has really stood out to me outside of Scott Pilgrim Vs the World. Whilst I've enjoyed bits from others, overall I've treated them as, harsh but, brainless.

I want this to be clear because this is the first 2D beat'em up to break my expectations. Maybe this is purely just by the addition of a "trials" mode but the complexity of skill and utility felt immeasurably higher then others of the same standard. Whilst playing the idea of how to attack were more clear. And the risk Vs reward of special skills makes each move feel more engaging. The variation across the cast had me interested in playing many members of the cast and more importantly interested in replaying the games which is something I don't usually have.

Considering the amazing soundtrack, great artwork and great gameplay. It's hard to really find any faults in the game. From a design perspective, it does exactly what it intends to the only reasonable flaw I can throw at it is theres a difficulty spike in the final levels, which may be due to it being designed for a 2 player experience.

I look forward to going back and trying other characters and bumping up the difficulty

Ever since its release on March 22nd, I've been playing Dragon's Dogma 2 nonstop. But DD2 is a very long game, and I needed a break, lest I sacrificed my enjoyment with it. Then, in one of their weekly giveaways, Epic put this game up for free. It looked like a cute metroidvania, and ever since December 2023 I've been on my 2D platformer phase. Still, I needed an extra push to actually give it a try, and it was then that I made a discovery: It is the previous game from the developer of another indie metroidvania I've been keeping an eye on, Crypt Custodian. That was enough for me to pull the trigger and download it, and I don't regret it for a second.

I'll start by saying that, despite not getting a higher score from me, there really isn't a whole lot of negatives to talk about. Part of the reason it doesn't have a higher score are small issues here and there, too small individually to impact the score, and some people might not even notice/be bothered by them to affect their judgement (Myself included), but since I like having some objectiveness in my reviews, I have to take them into consideration. The other part of the reason is that this game follows "How to make a metroidvania 101" a little too much by the book, which in one hand means that it's a good game within the genre, but also a little too safe gameplay-wise. Of course, not every game needs to be revolutionary, and there are unique mechanics, but a lot of them are underutilized, therefore it ends up a mostly textbook example of a metroidvania.

And yet, it compensates its bumps with everything else it offers. The best word I can use to describe Islets is "lovely", it's such a charming experience full of personality. Every aspect of this game blends together in wonderful and colorful vibes, calming and soothing, from the art style to the music. It's a very relaxing experience, even at its most intense moments.

At first, I had to get used to something I don't usually expect from metroidvanias: Momentum. It's something that you'll normally find in 2D platformers, not metroidvanias. But the more I played it, the more natural it felt, and you'll soon be rushing through the map with fluid movement. Exploration is very fun, it never felt like a chore to revisit areas to check new places I couldn't access due to not having a certain skill, or looking for secrets. If anything, it's hard to not be willing to get 100% completion.

Combat is simple, every now and then you'll use a couple of arrows but it's mostly based on poking enemies with your sword. Speaking of enemies, there's a decent variety of them, and sometimes they can be troublesome. Even better than that are the boss fights. They start simple and get more complex as you advance, and are pretty much all fun battles, I never raged at any of them even if sometimes it took me a few tries to beat them. There are also flying boss battles - which block your path towards new isles - in which you use your flying boat to fend them off. These only happen a couple of times and play like a bullet hell, they're pretty cool but half of them were a bit annoying, and I wish there were more of these sections. Other small complaints are that, firstly, the way you get your upgrades, finding collectibles in the map and then picking one of 3 random options, can often give you 3 mediocre options, leaving you with no choice but to pick one of them (Sometimes all the options are the same!). Secondly, the game is a little inconsistent with its difficulty. I played the entire thing on Hard, and yet sometimes things were a piece of cake, and other times enemies were super tough. Bosses do tend to follow a more linear difficulty progression at least.

If you expect a big story and books worth of lore, don't. And you know what? That's not a problem at all with this game! You'll learn most of what you need right as you start, and then get more worldbuilding and character interactions as you play, and the lighthearted and wholesome tone of it all makes for a very nice and positive experience. The characters are all fun too, and they'll have interesting things to say in every encounter, either collaborating with the worldbuilding or guiding you closer to your objectives.

The last two aspects of this game are what gives Islets the chill and wholesome tone it has: The visuals and the music. This game has a very pretty and well animated style, with vibrant colors and cute looking characters and enemies. Meanwhile, the music in this game is super chill, even the ones for battles, which in one hand isn't particularly memorable exactly because it doesn't stand out much, but in the other it is integral to the full experience in my opinion. Sound effects are good too, I don't know how to describe them better than "they totally fit", however I'm pretty sure it uses some borrowed sounds, such as a Minecraft grass sound for rolling and a Star Wars blaster for an enemy's attack.

Islets is a game that I would be willing to play a whole lot more if it was longer, taking me close to 12 hours to get 100%. It's fun, it's cute and it's a lovely experience. I dare say it's a perfect introductory game to the genre, maybe even to people that have never played games before (On lower difficulties) since it doesn't require many buttons or skill. A surprisingly great game and a hidden gem that I must share, even if it does have some lesser issues.

SCORE: 8.5/10

I could write an entire book on just how good this game is. It's a masterclass in story-telling, world design, combat mechanics, graphical design, voice-acting, basically every facet of development of this video game was done well. On top of all that, it somehow managed to capture the spirit of the original game, and still tell its own story that is faithful to the source material.

This is now my favourite game of all time.

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is the current pinnacle of gaming.

Ato is a strange one in that it has a hand to play but refuses to show you it for the first hour of its ~5 hour runtime. You're dropped into a world with a blocky early-NES samurai guy who has to save his child from a clan of ninja, and it feels stiff at first.

You have no abilities, and without even a double jump you kind of have to ride the promise of stellar audio design and gorgeous parallax scrolling in order to make it past a somewhat tedious intro. Eventually you beat the introductory bosses (which are fun but somewhat similar) and the game shows its Metroidvania hand. There's weird mystical stuff? Hollow Knight and Sekiro vibes? Crazy bosses? Woah!

In Ato, you explore a managable map, do some platform challenges, grab some collectibles, and beat some bosses through parry or cheese. The post-intro bosses are all extremely fun (outside of maybe the very last one -- Tip: use the dagger!) and the platforming challenges are fun and well designed, The story goes a neat place or two as well, so at the end of it all I thought hey, this is pretty nice!

Little friction points here and there. The intro is, as mentioned, a bit tedious; the parry/charge slice is a bit awkward to navigate and doesn't keep you in the moment as much as, say, the Sekiro deflect; and the world feels a bit lifeless at times. A few villages, a shop with consumables, and a few sidequests would have went a long way, though that's easier said than done and maybe contrasts with the lonely feeling Ato tries to convey.

Still, quite good. Excellent audio and use of parallax, fun boss fights, doesn't overstay its welcome.

I played this with mods to enable quick Kong swapping (and randomized, DK64-ized music from other games). The music was a fun twist, but the Kong swap shortcut changes this game immensely. It doesn't fix all of the issues, far from it, but it makes the game a LOT more pleasant to traverse.

I had a fun time blasting through this game this way, and it was nice to revisit it without it being nearly the slog it would be otherwise. I highly recommend that mod for anyone else who wants to play this game.

I love Pepper Grinder, but it needs updates. More than that, it needed more time in the oven.

Grinding/drilling through the dirt is so satisfying, bolstered by great use of HD Rumble on Switch. Grinding through gravel and popping out of the Earth, at its best, is one of the best feeling game mechanics in years to me. It is that special. The level design is great and has light collectathon elements -- big Donkey Kong Country and Yoshi's Island vibes. There are ideas used once or twice alongside level/visual themes only used a few times, and for the most part they're executed great. The difficulty during levels is breezy but not overly so. The music rips, too.

If all of Pepper Grinder was like this, it would be one of the best 2D platformers I had played in years. Skipping over the water man...it feels so good! Unfortunately, the game faces regular, frustrating issues with punishing bosses, inconsistent checkpointing, bugs, strange hitboxes, and other design quirks that leave me feeling more mixed here than any game I've played in some time. The bosses in particular -- why is there such an unearned difficulty spike here? Why am I doing Metroidvania-style pattern recognition bosses after skipping over the water using my silly drill? Why are there no permanent health upgrades to accommodate?

This still could end up in my Top 10 (or at least honorable mentions) at the end of the year because the stuff that hits really hits. But the whiplash between total elation and "almost quit the game" level frustration makes it a really difficult thing to evaluate. Excited to see what the developer does next.

Without fail, my experience has been that games made by Good-Feel are very charming, occasionally very fun, and at times a little boring to play. Princess Peach: Showtime! is no different.

I think to some extent, the demo and press previews incorrectly pitched this game as a one-button action game for babies. Having playing through it over the course of 6-7 hours, I'm surprised to say the vibe is more like Luigi's Mansion 2-3 than anything else.

Like other Good-Feel games, levels are 15 minutes long and have a bunch of collectibles -- some frustratingly missable -- but like newer Luigi's Mansion the levels themselves have little themed stories/vignettes attached to them. The difficulty/action gameplay feel almost in service of the adventure-y elements rather than necessarily being the point of Showtime.

This is totally fine of course, and it's not like there's nothing to the gameplay either. Peach has 10 costumes to use through levels themed to each (3 levels per costume) and although it's a one-button action game, the different themes mix up the gameplay well. Ninja Peach has stealth gameplay, Mighty Peach (Hero Peach?) has some shmup sections, Swordfighter Peach has some basic parry/dodge mechanics, Baker Peach (or whatever she's called) has baking minigames, and so on.

I enjoyed this aspect a lot, though all costumes are not created equal. The Kung-Fu, Ninja, and Hero levels sat at the top of the pile, and the Baker/Detective ones were really dull I thought (they had no action gameplay to speak of). Everything else sat somewhere in-between. This created an odd pacing to the whole thing where I would be bored, then entertained, then bored again.

On the positive side, the boss fights are fantastic and feel like some of the better fights you'd see in a GameCube/Wii-era platformer.

Peach is a good Nintendo protagonist and I hope they do more games with her. But aforementioned elements and others (it's pretty short for a full-priced game, gets fairly framey at times, and doesn't have much to do after you beat it) paint a portrait of a game that has high highs and low lows. Good-Feel at its most Good-Feel!

This marks the third Team Ninja game I've beaten (after Final Fantasy Origin and Wo Long) -- fourth one I've played a lot of (15-20 hours into Nioh 2 before I stopped playing it -- plan to try again).

The thing I've learned is that Team Ninja soulslikes are like the beginning of an RPG where you have a certain number of points to allot to different stats. Some stats will get 5 bonus points, others will get 0. Team Ninja has a certain number of points to work with; some elements will be the funnest stuff you've ever played, and other elements will feel rough.

-FF Origin had a sick, hilariously camp story and fun gameplay, but poor balancing and a really annoying endgame.

-Wo Long was an easier, awesome twist on Sekiro with a mystical three kingdoms setting and great boss encounters, but a poorly told story and a combat flow that can get somewhat one note once you get the handle on parrying.

Rise of the Ronin takes the Nioh concept of arcade-y soulslike gameplay and some Sekiro, mixes it all up, and sticks it in an...Assassin's Creed game? You're jumping up on buildings, stabbing dudes from behind, and meeting historical figures in a way where you feel like it's missing a 90s sitcom applause track.

The flow of things here, structurally, is very reminiscent of Ghosts of Tsushima or Assassin's Creed. Tons of icons are dotted on the map at various levels and you have to choose which village of enemies to rout or which side mission you want to do to get to know a character a little better.

I liked this structure overall. The side missions were pretty fun and fleshed out, and the writing is a huge step up from Wo Long and FF Origin. No masterpiece, but significantly less camp and you will feel like you're learning a bit about 19th century Japanese history.

The Ubisoft of it all was fun too. I'm not much of a side content guy, but the combat mishmash was so fun that I had a blast clearing out villages and the like. It had a bit of an Elden Ring/BOTW vibe to it too where I would go "ooo, what's that" and then chase some activity either in the distance or that I saw on the map.

Team Ninja soulslike combat is so interesting in that it tickles my brain in a way no other action gameplay does, yet on paper it is a Diablo game with loot grind, increasing numbers and a decent bit of repetition. Rise of the Ronin is no different, though this is a really solid version of it.

You have Nioh-esque stances, Sekiro-style risk/reward parrying + stagger bar, and backstabby stealth that feels really good. On top of that, because this is the 1860s, you get access to bayonets, rifles, and handguns. These have a great sense of power to them (read: they get super cheesy) and it's one of the only times I've really focused on subweapons in a soulslike.

So why only 4 stars? Well, it took me 35-37 hours to credits, and I was dragging a bit by the time I got there. Some really amazing boss encounters in the back third of the game, but you have to get through a good number of repetitive boss fights before it really locks in. The other two issues are (1) the story doesn't diverge through player choice nearly as much (or as consequentially) as the promo/leadup suggested -- if not promised -- and (2) the open world has you doing the same 2-3 types of activities over and over again without enough wonder/discovery.

Combine that with the inherent repetition of Team Ninja souls gameplay, and I'm kinda left holding up the "wrap it up" award speech light in the last act.

In other words, while I think Rise of the Ronin is a great game and furthers my love for Team Ninja as well as these quirky Dark Souls-inspired action games (I would rather play something like this than proper Dark Souls most days), this isn't quite Days Gone levels of "this is low-key one of the best games on the entire console."

Still, high hopes for Team Ninja, man. High, high hopes.