Completion Criteria: Credits Rolled

It's been a while since I've picked up something I'd consider a hidden gem or something I've beaten the algorithm to play (last was probably Helltaker). Sure I've played some less known games before in modern time but I had never seen any discussion of this and seeing the trailer and the reviews on steam being in the double digits, my curiosity was peaked.

WI went in thinking would it would be a nice looking Braid equivalent game but the game plays way more like a good translation of a 3D platformer collectathon onto the 2D plane. A while I was slightly worried at the beginning the controls would be stiff, they really become quite fluid and the slow walk becomes more justified when time trials become relevant. Although I had to think a bit, I had no issues doing what I wanted and finishing up the game when I wanted to. The music is also nice and breezy, in the style of a David wise, and I'll be adding the soundtrack to my personal collection if it's available.

I think the key thing here is the 2D collectathon. I'm always looking for good ones to fit in between bigger games so If you like classic 3D collectathon, I'd recommend at least keeping your eye on this for a sale as i don't think I've found a better translation in 2D. Exceeded expectations.

So close to being great but too many fatal flaws. Canvas Curse sequel? Awesome! Make it more action-y and give it more forward momentum? Great! Make it look like Gumby? Ohhhhhhh yeahhhhhhhhhh.

This is a monkey's paw situation surpassed on the Wii U only by Star Fox Zero. See, the big downside to making a beautiful claymation Kirby Canvas Curse sequel is that if you're using the stylus, your eyes are LOCKED to the GamePad at all times. So while I played the game on my gorgeous 1080p monitor (ie I matched resolution so it should look its best), I barely got the chance to look at the game on the TV because I had to look at the low-brightness, LED Playskool-ass GamePad that can only display game graphics by streaming them from the console. Although I sympathize with the idea that this is probably the only way to make this game on Wii U, I can't help but think in 2024 that they should have saved this as a Switch handheld-only game that is packed in with a capacitive stylus. The way it is now feels completely kneecapped.

The game is quite fun, and feels like it has more pop than what I played of the DS game. Good worlds, good level design, fun bosses, etc. However, (I hope this isn't a spoiler so quick warning HERE) the way the game is structured, there are 7 worlds of 4 levels -- last one of each being a boss -- and the first three world bosses repeat for the second set of three worlds. In other words, you fight the damn Kirby World 1 Tree twice, with the latter time being a little harder. There are only 28 levels in the game...do we need to be repeating bosses on a first playthrough? Between that and the lack of side modes (other than some challenge levels), I understand why they charged only $40 for this at launch.

So yeah, totally good Kirby Wii U game, glad I played it, but the art style is completely compromised by the fact that you are only regularly looking at it on your smudgy 12-year-old GamePad. If you can live with that and the fact that it's kind of a sparse experience, pretty good!

I've been wanting to play this game for a very long time, but every time it went on sale, I always decided that I either wanted to play something else or that my money would be better spent elsewhere for the time being. But once again PC Game Pass came to my rescue, and I installed it as soon as it was available.

As a Castlevania fan, and a metroidvania enjoyer, I was very excited to play a game by the series' creator that is a modernized metroidvania 2D Castlevania (The distinction is important, because much like the original series, the Bloodstained team made different kinds of 2D games called "classicvanias", similar in style to the NES games or Super Castlevania). And the long and short of it is that it's pretty much exactly that: Literally Castlevania, for better or for worse.

It mostly mixes gimmicks and mechanics from two Castlevania games: Symphony of the Night (Most famous of them all) and Aria of Sorrow (My favorite). Instead of vampires, we have shardbinders. Instead of absorbing a demon's soul, you imbue its crystal shard to yours. New names, old tricks. This, however, is no issue at all; how could you go wrong by adopting and improving on beloved features from beloved games, especially when they're so well done - and in my humble opinion - even better in some cases.

Let's start breaking down what this game offers, starting with the story. Once again, it's literally just Castlevania re-flavored. Instead of a vampire summoning a castle and demons from hell, alchemists did it. Instead of vampires, we have shardbinders. Instead of a demon hunter and a sorcerer as companions, we have Solid Snake a Japanese demon hunter and an alchemist. Even some of the plot points are similar to a couple of things that happen in the two games this is inspired on, including the fact that you won't play all of the content if you don't go for the true ending. Now is that bad or good? It's honestly up to you. These aren't meant to be lore-heavy narrative focused games, most of the time the story's there to give you a reason and context for exploring the castle. I personally liked it quite a bit, and I have to commend the voice actors for doing such a great job, they all felt fitting.

The gameplay experience, from the moment I took control of Miriam, was instantly familiar. It plays similarly to other Castlevania games, so if you didn't enjoy how other games from the series played, this isn't much different, some things are straight up identical, like how the map/minimap looks and works. There are some new and cool gimmicks and abilities you get though. Sidequests may give you a reason to farm a few items to get rewards, alchemy may transmute useful items from materials you collect, or you could just cook a nice meal and get permanent stat boosts from it. You can learn to invert gravity, bounce off walls, have a familiar constantly accompanying you, and more. I wish there was more variety to sidequests though, and that item progression didn't get that much harder like it does when nearing the endgame. For example, even having explored 100% of the map, I still couldn't find certain items, ingredients, recipes, etc that weren't meant to be secrets as far as I know. And even if I did, what's the point of farming for a better build when I'm already pretty strong and only have one boss left? I can't see that being useful unless if the difficulty level above this one is A LOT more difficult. Overall, if you like how Castlevania plays, you'll certainly have a blast, even if progression kind of halts at about 75% of completion.

Visually, this game manages to look good and just passable at the same time. This is because the art style, art direction and character/monster designs are very good, but most animations are stiff (Almost amateurishly so), cutscenes are glorified camera changes, and character expressions are non-existent. Everything looks good and kinda cartoony otherwise. This is the baseline of how I expect a modern 2D Castlevania to look like, and places do give off the Castlevania feels.

In fact, I know I mentioned how similar this game is to the series multiple times already, but I wanted to compliment this game by mentioned how much it feels like Castlevania. A game could try to copy everything, and even so end up with a different feeling product, and yet Bloodstained feels like Castlevania through and through, especially in the gameplay and soundtrack departments.

Speaking of the soundtrack, it's unironically one of this game's strongest aspects. If these were in actual Castlevania games, they'd be remembered as some of the best of the series. They're all amazing and very well fitting to the source material and current in-game situations and places. Sound design isn't bad at all, but it's also not that special, it does its job fine.

It took me about 20 hours to finish it, doing most sidequests, farming quite a bit to transmute equipment and food and getting a 100% map completion. I'd say it's pretty much the perfect length for a game of its kind, lots of things to do and explore. This game is a big "thank you" to Castlevania fans, still being updated to this day (With an online mode to come), and I heavily recommend it if you like Castlevania, or more RPG-leaning metroidvanias. It's not perfect; for a 2019 game it feels a bit dated visually, and some mechanics aren't very useful when you get them that far into the game; and yet it's still great fun, it scratched my Castlevania itch for a while, and hopefully it gets a sequel that improves upon the formula.

SCORE: 8.5/10

If you like 2D platformers, get this game! Super tight controls, I found it charming, and although it isn't perfect it takes a lot for a game to make me want to 100% it, and I knew I wanted to do it pretty early on because I was having so much fun. Getting a mombo combo is always satisfying, I found myself getting one when I didn't need to anymore for that screen just because it felt good! That's good game design. this is a 2d platformer with metroidvania elements and I think it does a fucking good job of mixing those things nicely. I actually wanted to backtrack! Fuck you ori

After putting it down at maybe the third level a full year ago, I came back and beat it. Given that the consensus is fairly lukewarm, I was surprised to discover that I mostly loved it!

Wo Long’s biggest sin is that it takes such direct inspiration from Sekiro and isn’t quite as good as one of the best video games ever made. But dang it, more games should do awesome pressure combat! More Sekiro spiritual sequels please!

The big differences with Wo Long are that it’s a lot easier than Sekiro (thanks to its clever Morale/flag system where the more you explore the easier everything is), everything is broken down into small Nioh-style levels (makes sense since Team Ninja made this), and that the Sekiro combat is completely dictated by unblockable (but parryable) super moves with huge windups.

It’s way easier than nearly every big budget Soulsy game I’ve ever played AND the story is kinda junk, but damn it it’s fun! Super cool bosses and historical fiction concepts. The difficulty reminded me of a good Platinum game on default difficulty or a challenging platformer. Not crazy, but you’ll get the blood pumping.

If you recalibrate your expectations to Wo Long being a fun ~20 hour Sekirolike rather than anything overly special, I think you’ll have a pretty nice time. Great Game Pass game!

This game has left me speechless. It did not, however, leave me at a loss for words, quite the opposite, so I'll just type this review in silence. 5 years after Blind Forest and lots of hype around it, Moon Studios released their Magnum Opus: Ori and the Will of the Wisps... And after setting the bar this high, beating this will be a tall order. Where to even start?

I guess the best way forward is to compare it to its predecessor. When Blind Forest released, modern indie metroidvanias were still niche, and it was at the time a massive step forward for the genre. However, by 2020, the standards were much higher, some examples being Hollow Knight being hailed as a masterclass, and Bloodstained, a metroidvania by actual former Castlevania devs. For Will of the Wisps to succeed, it'd need to compete with these games.

Luckily, in the meantime, Moon Studios was improving upon the existing foundation and fixing what wasn't quite right with the first game. I actually struggle to find fault with this game, the only thing I could mention - it sometimes taking a couple of minutes to close - isn't even a fair complaint. Anyway, I digress, onto the review proper.

In my Blind Forest review, I mentioned that it was a great platformer held back by lackluster combat and a lack of boss fights. In it, most of your offensive capabilities relied on mashing a single button, and it was hard to predict enemies so you could dodge their attacks. This time around, combat is a highlight. This game isn't very hard (Granted, I played on Normal, but changing it to Hard would just make enemies hit harder, not change their attack patterns), but they managed to make normal enemies much better to fight against, both by giving Ori different offensive skills and by improving readability. Ever since right at the beginning when Ori got a sword, I knew they weren't playing around. And the bosses are the apex of this new combat system. There's still chase sequences like in the first game, but now you actually fight back, and these fights get even better as the game goes on and you unlock new abilities and skills.

Speaking of abilities and skills, they were revamped in the sequel. Originally, to unlock new skills, Ori had to gather spirit light to buy them like XP, and the skill trees required you to unlock them in order. Now Ori uses spirit light as a currency, and can freely buy skills from vendors and equip them by assigning them to one of 3 buttons. Not only that, but very much inspired by Hollow Knight, there's now the spirit shards: Passive skills you can equip as badges. Personally, I like the new system a lot more; it takes some getting used to coming from the first game, but it's a lot better once you get the feel.

In the first game, the story was simple but cute, about family and forgiveness. Things aren't much different here but the improvements are noticeable. This time, it keeps the themes from the original but it's also about friendship and sacrifice, and while the first game made me smile, this one almost made me cry, be it through direct narrative (Ku...) or environmental storytelling (Papa Moki...). To accompany the main story, there's also sidequests this time. They're mostly basic fetch quests, but I think they add a nice touch and are an extra motivator for you to explore and talk to people. The NPCs, which act as vendors, quest givers, or are there merely for flavor and worldbuilding, are all nice, some appearing more than others (Not counting the dozens of Moki around the map).

The map is much bigger, and yet it never felt boring to explore. This is because of the much improved gameplay and systems I've already mentioned (Which is an amazing feat by itself since Blind Forest was already great at platforming), and because of the environmental variety of this game: You go through deep forests, swamps, caves, lakes, deserts and snowy mountains, each place with their own platforming gameplay flavor (Such as burrowing in the desert and the darkness in the deep forest). And once again, the game rewards you for pulling off stunts using your skills, with some patience and the right abilities equipped you can get a lot of stuff early and feel great about it.

Of course, you can't talk about the environments in an Ori game without mentioning how this game looks, and to say the least, it's stunning. Unironically one of the best looking games ever. Every place has been carefully hand-painted, and so it looks like a playable painting, you could take a screenshot and in most place it would be wallpaper material. Everything from the colors to the shapes to the lighting makes it all special, and it looks crispier, less blurry than in Blind Forest, which already looks great. Another noticeable step up is in the environmental storytelling, backgrounds will tell you tales and give you hints of what happened, and in certain places they'll change based on your progress and actions, like Papa Moki... 😭

Complimenting the locations, moments, and emotional strings is an ever present soundtrack, and this game would lose half its weight if it wasn't as good as it is. I won't spend a lot of time here because there's not much to say besides "it's peak", and that it manages to be even better and more memorable than in the first game. I will, however, talk a bit about the sound design. It's something that is overlooked most of the time by gamers, and only really appreciated by the most attentive of players. In Will of the Wisps, even more than it already was in Blind Forest, Moon Studios did a great job with it. From ambience, to attacks, to Ori making movement sounds, everything sounds so good and "fitting" (And once again, Ori sounds very cute, especially when calling for Ku).

Honestly, I fear for this franchise, it's been 4 years since 2020, and there's no news about it. And considering that Microsoft (IP owner) cut ties with Moon Studios and allegations of a toxic environment, I don't even know who could make a new Ori game, especially one that hits the same notes and standards. A game like this is a once in a generation phenomenon for a game studio, and I really hope that, somehow, Microsoft finds someone that can replicate the Ori feel (Hand-painted scenarios, gameplay, etc) to make a new game.

This game will forever stand as one of the best metroidvanias ever, and is a must if you like the genre at all. It has everything a game could possibly offer, and while it has more content than the first game (Took me 21:30 hours, 8 hours more than Blind Forest), it never felt like it dragged on, on the contrary, I wanted more by the end. A truly special experience, one that I must recommend to everyone.

SCORE: 10/10

Once this game was announced, I went day after day thinking this was a goofy, low quality Final Fantasy Dark Souls from the Nioh team. Man, I was wrong. This thing is great!

Not only do you have lovable edgelord protag Jack AKA Shadow the Hedgehog AKA Dr. House in a Final Fantasy game, and not ONLY does he play 7 seconds of nu-metal on his phone in frustration from not yet having killed Chaos before turning it off again, but this is a really good take on a more accessible/casual Dark Soulsy/Nioh thing.

It’s really easy (on default difficulty) if you’ve played one of these before, but it’s still really fun and well made. Good bosses, a dense campaign that takes maybe 15 hours to run through (20ish with some side stuff), and a strangely told story that sheds new light on the world of Final Fantasy 1. And, for as strange and budget as the storytelling feels, it…completely sold me on its vision for an expanded FF1???? I even bought the DLC to (hopefully if I get to it) see how it wraps up! Jack Garland is DMC Dante but way more lovable. Anytime a character has a monologue, he tells them to shut up before pulling out a weapon. It’s like he’s so earnestly stupid that it wins you over. A real anti-Final Fantasy protagonist.

I also appreciate that it seems to have a looty Diablo-style grind in its endgame, where you run side missions and the DLC for increasingly crazy mission difficulty levels. While I think it's a clever way to add longevity and works well for a game that isn't balanced to From Software levels of design polish, I am a bit annoyed the DLC (which features the end of the base game's story) is balanced for endgame difficulty so if you play the default "Action" difficulty you're going to get your ass beat in the DLC. There are lore friendly options, but it's still pretty annoying IMO.

Still, super cool video game. Strongly recommend checking it out and sticking with it (it gets SO MUCH BETTER after the first couple missions) if you're interested.

Completion Criteria: All case files solved

I went in ready to deny the naysayers but the game really is very middling. Played in Co-op. From the getgo I was pretty impressed. It looks pretty good and the character options seemed fun. Kali Sticks, Bo Staff and Tonfa are some of my favourite options. I didn't really vibe with Nighwing and Tim is probably my least favourite bat personality outside of Jason so Batgirl was decided. And then you get into combat and it just immediately feels of. Slow and meandering, a rhythm which is more monotonous then regular Batman combat which was already decisive. It just controls quite badly. Luckily the game starts pretty simple so you don't have to pay too much attention but that changes as you go on. Specifically, most late game enemies are extremely tedious. They will often just teleport away. And you will run around aimlessly for what felt like up to a minute for them to respawn sometimes. Flying enemies that meander in the air for an age while you run donuts just don't feel like they fit into the game. The story is pretty underwhelming. With the court having a lot of untapped potential in favour of a pretty obvious plot. I had heard about the controversy behind crimes before but it was never really explained properly. During certain multiple points in the story. You are tasked with finding specific groups of randomly assigned enemies to spawn and interrogate them. Even amongst these spawns, only small enemies can be interrogated. This leads to you often going to a group of enemies and having to fight the strongest enemies first and most likely accidentally killing of anyone you can interrogate. On the flip side, we would often end up going into autopilot if there were no large enemies and just killing everyone, forgetting to interrogate. The game doesn't really teach you how to do this and even if it did, there's not a great reason as to why they shouldn't just mark them on the map for you or make it non faction related.

Overall just a very middling game. Wouldn't recommend. Nice to understand the complaints though

I played the demo early last year thinking. Yeah that was pretty good. Wonder how it will do. Then I heard nothing about it really. Over the winter sale I decided that I wanted to check out the full release and see how it was. The answer is better!

The game is really all about movement, If you are familiar with Umihara Kawase, just like it the game uses moment from a grappling hook as the primary form of movement which doesn't stray too much from the path. But increases in complexity, which means that You are tested on what you learn, and any repeats will likely allow you to sequence break. The game looks great with some classic indie style graphics you'd find in momodora or cave story, and the story albeit tame is quite an interesting take for an area that is usually often in the limelight. at 10 hours long, for 95% completion. This feels like a great addition to any metroidvania library, maybe a must have, definitely my fav from the subgenre in 2023. And one I recommend to anyone want that spice of difference in the honestly pretty safe genre.

What a good game. I loved what I played of the original some years ago, but never finished it. I'm glad this version released so that I could finally do so, and with a fresh new look.

I loved the art style throughout the entirety of the game. A perfect adaptation of the charm of the original art style, every character is adorable and charming.

The soundtrack is probably one of the best out there, another masterpiece by
Yoko Shimomura, and the modern orchestrated versions do not miss.

All in all, a lovely way to experience the game, losing seemingly nothing of the original (save for the excellent sprite work). Excellent.

Completion Criteria: Ending 2

I've been debating whether I should mark this as complete and review it and since the game has told me it's over. I feel like I should, for people confused about what I mean? I can't really be specific without spoilers and I can't even really critique it without spoilers. But I want to provide a review for people who are seeing the high scores and wondering if it's worth it.

I guess I also don't have an answer for you. I don't know. The game is a sokobon intended to be used to provide a detailed and mysterious story, but although the sokobon is servicable (as the genre gets, very standard), and the story itself is serviceable to what I played. They do not gell particularly well. Themes come across and are obvious but for a game that wants to hide secrets from you, it makes it very hard for you to look for secrets. Playing through ostensibly the entire game because I realised a split second too late that the room I was in was the goal of a clue provided earlier does not leave a good taste in your mouth. My gut tells me that the scores for this game may be bloated by those who really put loved it whilest the middling feelings were blasted away by the tedium expected from you. I played the game for a bit over 10 hours and was already not particularly happy with the design choices so when I checked the How Long to Beat Time was over 50 hours, also seeing the recommended reviews on steam reaching upwards of 140 hours, I realized that this game is hitting for people.

Maybe the reason people are so invested are legitimate, maybe they are superficial, maybe they are horny. I don't know. All I can say is as someone who has finished some highly controversial puzzle games like La Mulana, I just feel like they may have attempted to purify their theme and ended up ruining the puzzles of the world (even they kind of mess up there them anyway with <spoilers>

Try it with a word of caution, if you get to a point you think the game asks for too much, don't follow the words of hype. Maybe I'll go back to it but I am definitely not invested in doing so at the moment.