DarkCoffee
A pretty good take on a SotN-like. Has oodles and oodles of extra goodies in it, and a built in randomizer which is very good.
Plot and characters are all kind of nothing and Miriam's character design looks silly. Lacks most of its inspiration's sauce. As good as this game is, it never even came close to being as cool as Symphony of the Night. But hey, I had a great time with it and the extras are all great post-game things that keep me coming back long after beating it. Sometimes you just wanna spin up a new randomizer seed and play 40% of a castle with weird weapons, and Bloodstained is the best in the business at that. More games should have built in randomizers!
Plot and characters are all kind of nothing and Miriam's character design looks silly. Lacks most of its inspiration's sauce. As good as this game is, it never even came close to being as cool as Symphony of the Night. But hey, I had a great time with it and the extras are all great post-game things that keep me coming back long after beating it. Sometimes you just wanna spin up a new randomizer seed and play 40% of a castle with weird weapons, and Bloodstained is the best in the business at that. More games should have built in randomizers!
2015
Accomplishes everything it sets out to do in a very accessible way. A memorable and pleasant time start to finish which ends pretty much exactly when it should.
Perhaps the grandest praise: It inspires people to go out and make their own things.
Perhaps the grandest praise: It inspires people to go out and make their own things.
1998
A helpful reminder that the PSX had bad games, too
Darn good Street Fighter. Crumbles a little bit at high level from an over-reliance on very tight links.
The vibes here are incredible but it doesn't really work as an adventure game beyond that. The "just show me the next puzzle" room feels like a game that lacks confidence in its puzzles, and I can't say I really blame it. There's some real adventure game nonsense going on in here and my goodness is the audio mixing bad.
Definitely go spin this one up for a few minutes, though. It's too interesting a view into a very brief period of game history to miss.
Definitely go spin this one up for a few minutes, though. It's too interesting a view into a very brief period of game history to miss.
A charmingly presented framework around a incredibly well implemented minigame which is sort of fundamentally evil.
2012
Great aesthetic, pretty reasonable everything else. Big fan of the unlocks you get for beating the game. An interesting example of what the early 3DS eShop was like.
2023
Edit: This game's primary dev is such a 4chan style hateful dweeb I can't in good conscious keep a high rating. Original review left below for posterity.
A remarkable accomplishment. Manages to meet its staggeringly high ambitions with a level of polish that seems impossible for a dev team of this size. I don't think the tone always aligns with my tastes, but I can't deny that this game accomplishes everything it set out to do and rarely stumbles while doing it.
Turned my brain into a pizza pie.
A remarkable accomplishment. Manages to meet its staggeringly high ambitions with a level of polish that seems impossible for a dev team of this size. I don't think the tone always aligns with my tastes, but I can't deny that this game accomplishes everything it set out to do and rarely stumbles while doing it.
Turned my brain into a pizza pie.
2018
A staggeringly polished example of a simple thing done well. Every small thing about this game reveals itself as something thoughtful and clever as you chip away at it, right down to the rounded corners on blocks enabling high skill play. The perfect thing to play for five minutes, and the perfect total length to master and then beat. Absolutely one of the best mobile games of recent memory and perhaps all time.