I may have plunged myself into the depths of the accursed, to the nightmarish house of creatures beyond every mind that has seen the light, faced the impossible and the inconceivable at the same time, unable to understand the otherworldly horrors that stared me at the eye and their sounds rotted my ears, and most of all, getting spooped really fucking hard and wanting to call it quits... but I couldn't... I had to do it... not for me, no... but for the dog

I think I feel pretty confident when I say that horror is perhaps one of the most personal genres in all of media in general. Yes, I know, bold of me to say this considering how many times I’ve stated that it’s the subset of books/movies/videogames I’m the least familiar with, but for the little I have allowed myself to experience, one thing became very clear; true fear in videogames does not come from immediate danger. A Goomba hurts Mario, an Imp attacks the Doom Slayer, space-ships try to shoot down Fox’s Arwing, but fear, fear affects you. I’m not saying that immersion is not possible in games like Doom or Star Fox, but rather that immersion is an essential key factor in horror games; series like Resident Evil or Silent Hill may have characters and protagonist that are their own beings, but those games succeed because the horrors they face affects them as much as they affect us, and is when that immersion fails, that indescribable horror of turning your back against anything but a wall, when a horro game fails. And it’s understanding this when both the successes and failures of Lost in Vivo are clear as water.

This statement may vary since in the days that come I’ll be playing more horror games than ever before, but at this point at time, the time were my feeble, still trembling hands are writing this, that I can say that Lost in Vivo has one of the best atmospheres that I have seen in a VERY long while, and the best opening areas I’ve encountered in any of the terror focused games I’ve played. The adventure to rescue your adorable canine friend doesn’t take long turn into madness made flesh, the sewers twist within themselves, going down and down, each floor more rotten than the last, mor unpredictable, more… impossible. The sewers lead to the metro, which leads to a seemingly forgotten temple, which leads to the mines, and it becomes more and more apparent that this place may not be as real as it might have seemed first, but that doesn’t make it the less scary, in fact that uncertainty of illusion and reality might help it even more terrifying. The fantastic OST and sound design pulls through in way that’s deserving of an standing ovation, the quiet melodies that plague each area tense you up in a way I can only compare to the internal doubt you may have sometimes wondering if you left the oven on, and that tension can turn into peace once you arrive at a save room and that wonderful melody fills your ears, or turns into the outmost despair when an indistinguishable instrument destroys the melody and you realize… you are not alone in this room no more. I can’t sing its praises enough, Lost in Vivo ambience is absolute perfection, accompanied by a visual style that, while clearly inspired by the PSX style and specially that one of Silent Hill, as many things on this game, it doesn’t stop it from feeling fresh and original, thanks to the spectacular enemy and area design and the AMAZING lightning. The puzzles are great too; the game tends to repeat the ‘’You can go to this place, you need to go for three things and every time you do a enemy appears’’ structure, but the steps and set pieces to get there are consistently fantastic and perfectly paced (at least until after the mines) and the small notes that connect to the main puzzles are honestly really cool and clever. When it comes at creating a deep rooted fear in you, the game delivers in spades… but as it goes on, while it never loses it’s essence and still has some stellar moments, by the time I arrived at the forgotten temple, much of the magic and initial impact had sadly vanished.

The game has a prominent Spooky’s Jump Scare Mansion structure, which despite both games being made by the same main developer, is not a sentence I was not expecting to say; both games have a very clear linear progression, do break the fourth wall from time to time, and have a prominent ‘’main monster for each zone’’ type of deal; now, this itself isn’t a problem, what is when this clashes with Lost In Vivo’s particular design. The game has a far more complex narrative, not limited to lore itself, but to the main character’s psyche, to their experiences and profound psychological turmoil, so certain fourth wall breaks and some areas can feel a bit out of place, specially after the half-way point. It’s also curious that, while the game it’s linear, there’s a lockpicking system that depends on you finding the items for opening certain doors that have one use only; it’s fine to have secrets and keys scattered around, but the lockpicking being one use each feels a bit weird… and in fact can lead to soft locking! No joke, there was a point I didn’t have any lockpicks and couldn’t go back to get any, so I was… stuck, and I had to do some tuff outside the game to fix it, otherwise I’d have to start from the beginning. I have no idea how this isn’t fixed or if there’s a fix I just missed, but if you plan on playing the game, be wary of this.

And then there’s the combat, which… look, I’m all in for combat feeling clunky in exchange of creating even more dread and insecurity, a less reliable move set and weapons may invite you to not participate in it, and Lost in Vivo be going for that… and the you realize some enemies don’t do shit. And that your life regeneration is fast as hell. And just liked that, a ton of the tension poofs… It’s not all bad, there are some really interesting enemies like the Mimic that are stellar, but in general, I didn’t feel like the combat made the game more terrifying, in fact the moments where you DON’T have to fight or can’t kill the enemy are the scariest by far, and there’s a boss fight that plays very well with that, but aside from that, enemies become just minor inconveniences when you realize that with just being a but careful, you can easily survive (the fact the final area is ‘’Random bullshit, go!’’ when it comes to enemies doesn’t really help).

And the fact the game has these problems deeply hurst me, ‘cause it’s otherwise a beyond amazing experience, one that mad me shiver as much as it made me feel hope, one that made love it despite of the terror and tension. It’s a game that does some things good and does them perfectly, a everlasting bad dream that can end in a happy outcome if you face it, and has many secrets and many others to be discovered.

Just follow the barks.

You’ll feel better.

And so, with a funny sounding yet triumphant trumpet, my little marathon of the Crash Banticoot series comes to an end. That's right, there are no more games everybody, absolutely no other games that I need to playPLEASE OH GOD DON'T MAKE ME PLAY THEM I WISH TO BE FREED FROM THIS MARSUPIAL REALM.

''Tell me, Crash, is this all there is, forever?’’

To be completely honest, I got Crash 4 shortly after it released on switch, even tho I didn't play ANY of the games at that point, but I figured that I shouldn't pass on the opportunity in playing a seemingly very fun 3D platformer, and so, I started playing... and shortly after I noticed my joy-cons had drift. Suffices to say I wasn't all that excited to keep playing a game that demands precision with, well, a controller that can't really give me that precision. Ando so, I postponed it, even well after I managed to grab myself a Pro Controller, and it ended up being the best involuntary decision I could have made, as it ended up serving as the final footnote in my dive of the Bandicoot's most well-known adventures, and it made its subtitle have the full weigh it fully deserves.

Indeed, my friend, it's about time, a game that strives to be the definitive sequel to a game that came out 22 years prior to this one, and let me tell, aside from what I think of the trilogy as a whole, those are some damn big shoes to fill.

Let's see if it has the foot to do it.

The Bandicoot at matter

As the ''fourth'' entry to a fairly continuist franchise, and one that had been subjected to some decisions questioned by many, AND with the remakes of the original trilogy coming out just three years prior, Crash 4 had all going for it to take the easy route: just make another Crash game, one that follows the beats of the OG's and you are set and done, you make some fans happy and make a fairly easy buck, simple! But as everyone has said, and as for many things one could say about Crash 4 (as I will certainly do), being not original is not one of them.

The game hits you with its presentation like if it was a punch to the eye, what Toys for Bob managed to do with the visual style is honestly jaw-dropping. Everyone has gotten a small re-design here, and nor only the new art-style does wonder to these old faces, but makes every animation a sight to behold. Every movement of every character, in both cinematics and gameplay, feels like watching an awesome animated movie, so many details and small things that make everything just so alive, and I think each time I'll think about this characters it will be in THIS look THIS style. Just look at Crash, Coco or Dingodile for crying out loud, they ooze so much personality that it makes me MAD, I'm angry at how amazing they look.

And the levels... DEAR CRUST THE LEVELS. Are these perhaps the most detailed, good looking and creative levels I've seen in a 3D platformer? 'cause they are up there for sure. Long gone are the days of level themes that repeat the same structure and in a messy order, instead, It's about time takes the original Crash Bandicoot world-map way of distributing levels and goes bonkers with it: each world a new theme, each level a new idea inside that theme. This game grabs your hand and takes you through unimaginable lands, from a prehistoric dying world to a Mad Max-esque wasteland, to even just filthy swamps, and it always manages to look beyond good and detailed, with set pieces that expand far beyond any other past game had ever done, and it truly feels like Warped on steroids. It's a blast going though these lands, you never know what crazy new thing the game it's gonna throw at you, but you know damn well it's going to be fun.

It also does a very smart thing: instead of collecting new power-ups to your move set every time you beat a boss, you start right of the bat with your double jump, and as you advance in the story, you rescue new masks that, at designated points, appear and give you powers that are designed specifically to be used in the level they are, like slowing time, give you a super spin that makes you practically fly,… and this may not feel as rewarding as a permanent upgrade at first, but it truly does wonders to help make incredibly more interesting level design, and thanks to it goes crazy with these ideas, and just adds so, SO much to the base crash formula that I couldn’t decide on my favorite one, they all just work so well.

Nonetheless, a lot of people would make the understandable assumption that even if the levels had a visual and design upgrade, the difficulty and challenge that was present in the first games would be lost, and to that I say... you poor, WRETCHED, FOOLS. There have been some changes that some could think make the game easier, like the fact that the recommended mode is the one without lives or that there are checkpoints through the bosses, but saying that this game is easy would a lie, it's incredibly challenging and offer some of the hardest platforming sections in the entire franchise , and while this is pretty welcomed, as it gives some really memorable and fun to overcome challenges, and there's really nothing wrong with any of this itself, but... well, we will get to that...

Only N'Tropy comes easy

I really wanted to start this review with the net positives, because this game has a few of them as you may have noticed, and make no mistake, when this game is good, is GOOD, in all caps, and I really want to make that clear. There are things I didn’t even talks about for the shake of not making this review longer than it already is like the music and boss fights, ‘cause both are absolute home runs, the bosses probably being the best in the series by far.

However, there are aspects the game which the game does fault a bit, like the story and the other playable characters. The game’s story honestly feels like a pretty decent take from where Warped left all, and putting the spotlight on N.Tropy as the true antagonist was a great decision… and then you beat N.Tropy (both of them) and the game decides to take the characters to little trip, but then it remembers the story needs a climax and so Cortex is the main bad again and it’s all just very jarring. I wouldn’t be as bad if other elements were also weirdly paced, a lot of interesting things like the return of Nitrus Oxide or Tawna not wanting to lose Crash and Coco after the versions of her dimension were killed are just glossed over very quickly. I know this is a Crash game, and that the story doesn’t want to be that complex in the first place, but still, it just feels they wanted to do a lot of things, so they threw them on the script with no consideration if they would feel half-baked or poorly made… Huh, I wonder if we will return to that point…

And as for the other playable characters, those being Tawna, Cortex and Dingodile, they are… fine????? I guess they are but none of them felt better that the base Crash and Coco. Twana just felt to restrictive and not having the slide severely limits her movement, Dingodile is very fun and it introduces some interesting elements, but aiming the TNT can be a pain on the ass sometimes, and Cortex… is probably the best, it is the lest mobile of them all, but it makes it up with the genuine interesting mechanic of turning the enemies into platforms, which if expanded upon could be the mechanic for an entirely new game! But what all these three have in common, is that… you barely see them. Yeah, for some reason most of the levels where you play as them you only do it for a small part of it, and half-way through you are back playing a level you already have beaten as Crash or Coco, the one difference being box placement, which just feel tacked on, repetitive and boring… Huh, I wonder if we will return to that point…

If these where the only bad things the game did, I wouldn’t complain even a bit, but keep in mind, these are the aspects that are a bit mixed… now it’s time dip the hands into the bullshit.

A faulty N.Gin

Hey, Vicarius Visions called, they want their whacky hitboxes back!

Ok, that may be a little to mean, Crash 4’s hitboxes and collision are nowhere near as bad as the ones in the N’sane Trilogy, but I did had a few moments where something silly happened, but luckily those where only counted instances… unlike some other shit. I was constantly raising my eyebrow to constant minor inconveniences, ‘cause Crash base movement may feel good, and the level design may be incredible, but that does not do much when the game decides to pull some silly trick or bug, specially in the enemies’ department.

And again, I can praise all these levels all day, but doesn’t change the matter that they just. Don’t. END. Levels lasts more than 15 minutes AT LEAST, and that’s not considering if you get stuck in some hard parts or the now infuriating bonus screens, and that would not be that much of a problem if it that didn’t meant that there are more boxes to break here that in any Crash game, 100 something boxes at minimum, and these number can reach to 300 in the Crash levels, and in the most outrageous case 5 FUCKING HUNDRED for one Dingodile level. So if you miss a box, and believe you me, you WILL miss a box, you have to start all over again the whole 15 minute level to get the box gem. And you may think ‘’oh well, just don’t pay attention to the boxes’’ but here’s the thing: not paying attention to the boxes just makes the game much less interesting, it eliminates some of the most interesting challenges out of the equation and it just doesn’t feel right. But at the same time, going for all the boxes isn’t worth at all ‘cause pretty much all the time it’s going to result in you missing some that you couldn’t find and as such you just end up feeling frustrated or demotivated! It’s the ouroboros of fucking it up, there’s no escaping here! And true, it’s not like I got all the boxes in any of the past games, but the difference it’s that in those I didn’t feel as frustrated ‘cause levels weren’t as long, there weren’t as many boxes, and so I still tried to break them in any new level, and I did got a lot of gems! Here tho? It’s just painful and if you are going for completion, it’s just time wasted… AND THAT’S ONLY ONE OUT OF THE SIX GEMS FOR EACH LEVEL.
There are 6 gems in total in each level, tho I’ll admit, some are fun to collect, like the wumpa fruit gems or the hidden one, and they are welcomed additions for sure… oh wait, did I say in a aggravating way that there were six of them? Oh, silly me, I meant 12… YEAH. After boss two, you unlock the N.verted versions of levels, which are.. the same levels you played… but with a nice filter on them! There are cool themes here and there, but in general, the changes are minimal, and in some cases make the level even more of a pain to see and traverse through, and also THEY ARE JUST THE SAME LEVEL AGAIN. I can’t call it padding ‘cause it isn’t necessary to beat the game, but it’s content that adds nothing to the overall experience and it just hinders it but making you go through it over, and over, and over, and over again; and that doesn’t even include the flashback tapes, the perfect runs, the unlockable skins, the time relic challenges and the N.verted versions of bosses. I know it may sound silly to criticize in this way what is basically side content, but is side content that just keeps recycling the base game, and it’s a big, BIG chuck of the game, and not playing it means not ‘’enjoying’’ all of the game, tho for me it ended up not even necessary to go though to get tired of the game, because even tho is just 10 hours long it just felt so looooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo-

Something something, pun with Dingodile in it

If I had to describe Crash 4, it would be by saying is both the best of what the series has to offer, while at the same time being some of the most repetitive and by design frustrating 3D platformer I’ve played, and I really don’t know if it was because of it’s nature as a Crash game or because of Toys for Bob insistence of making this experience last as it did.

If you asked me if I had fun, I’d say that only truly at the first half, and the rest of them I just praying for the end at some points, and it hurt me to feel that way so fucking bad, ‘cause again, what’s it’s good here, is freacking great, but I just can’t shake the feeling off that if it was more focused, more restrained with its content and, this would have been the best linear 3D platformer I ever played, but instead… it’s still a pretty good game!

I did overall enjoy it, but… I think I’m done with Crash for now. It was very fun, and I’m so glad that I ended up going all the way through this marathon, but, I had enough, I am too tired and my head hurts. I will be back to this series, don’t get me wrong, I really want to play Twinsanity but, for now, I’m happy with this little crazy voyage, and it was interesting to see the ups and downs of this marsupial, but it’s time for us to part ways…

Peace at last…

How do you even begin to quantify the infinite?

How do you defeat the unbeatable?

How do you reach the end of the impossible?

Mosa Lina’s premise seems like one you would make in some kind of parody: a experience that seeks to be basically infinite, where RNG has such a presence that sometimes it can be completely unbeatable, failure is basically guaranteed at some point and your arsenal is also completely limited by luck itself. It describes itself as an ‘’hostile’’ interpretation of the immersive sim, but that would be an understatement; there’s no real level design, there are some set structures the game may apply to levels, but other than that absolutely nothing is planned. You have nothing but yourself.

It should be barely more than a joke, a proof of concept put out to be played and maybe laughed with by other people, a experiment without much substance that while absolutely commendable, wouldn’t be memorable in the long run.

And yet, here we are.

If you where to ask me ‘’What is Mosa Lina similar to?’’, it’d literally impossible to start comparing beyond the most superficial level; it visually reminds me of Gonner with all the head-weapon thing, and… yeah, that’d be pretty much it. This is no simple ‘’oh, the game is very original and doesn’t lift many ideas from others’’ or ‘’takes a bunch of concepts and makes something new!’’ type of thing, it’s that I’ve never seen or played something that comes close to being what Mosa Lina is, to do what it dares to do. The ‘’Rogue-Like/Lite’’ space gets a ton of criticism with how stagnate it has gotten and how it’s been oversaturated with titles reach the level of greatness the best titles in the genre do, and if that wasn’t enough, now this game arrives, and it puts the supposed premise of ‘’infinity’’ that some of those best works in question proclaim to have into questioning. I don’t even think that calling it an immersive sim, as the game presents itself, would be entirely correct; you don’t really get to interact with the levels beyond what your three available weapons let you, and even if that’s not exactly a small level of interaction, it’s yet another showcase of how impossible to catalogue this game into a proper category really is.

But all of this shouldn’t really mean anything, even if it had the best of ideas, that wouldn’t mean a lot if the execution was jarring; like I said at the beginning, it would be a respectable effort for sure, but not much more… but we are not living in such a scenario.

Nine levels.

Nine weapons for each selection.

And the magic… you make it happen.

After a pretty basic tutorial, you are thrown into Mosa Lina, and its up to you to really find how it works. Each of the ‘’weapons’’ acts completely from one another, but none feel useless; some might be completely ineffective in certain scenarios, but they do not feel like a burden. Be it shooting boxes, squares, manipulating gravity or giving life to frogs with no neurons, these solutions are given to you, but not necessarily because they are the solution to a problem, because there’s never a real solution.

You fail. You retry. You fail. You win. You fail. You retry. You fail. You retry. You fail. You reroll and try your luck again. Each of these decisions, and what happens inside each level, it’s entirely your own, the game only goes as far to give you genius unpredictable scenarios, and the rest it’s up to you. There are times where it’ll be easy. Others you’ll be pondering and retrying for a while before finally nailing it down. Others aren’t possible with your current tools. And other times you may just get lucky. In all these possibilities, in all of these outcomes, it all feels earned, interesting and gratifying, even when al level is, by all accounts, unfair. And you keep pushing, and I kept pushing, because it made me feel pure wonder and awe, I wanted to keep experimenting, trying crazy stuff and managing to do it; it’s the ‘’Possibility Space’’ brought to its most insane result, a game that lets you to defy the impossible.

With each reset and each set of levels beaten, you keep moving forward in the null space, and you keep going, and going, and I kept going, and going, to see what lied at the end of the path, to see what I normally could never see. But at the end of the line there’s nothing, no ending, no reward, not even the credits: there’s nothing, and even if I should have felt a bit mad or disappointed, it couldn’t further from the truth, and I couldn’t think of anything more fitting. This is not a experience about a result, it’s about all of them, all of the little adventures, the steps at learning and sharing, at just feeling at peace if something doesn’t work or it can work. It doesn’t matter, there’s always another time to have another chance, and that’s fine. And I did it. And I kept coming back. And even with it’s fairly simple surface, I still find new ways to be surprised or feel that feeling of fun and creativeness sparking in my mind. And I utterly love it.

Even if it doesn’t click with you, even if you end up disliking it, I implore you to give it a try; it’s has the bravery to be unbeatable yet manages to be fun and infinitely replayable, it’s everything and it’s nothing both at the same time.

It’s the infinity.

And I adore it.

Here, at the bottom of the dying sea, running through the last bastions of humanity, where even the machines screaming in sheer pain, rotten to the very core and with nightmares beyond our wildest dreams reshaping what was once built, down here, with life taking its last gasps for air… NOT EVEN HERE I’M SAFE FROM SPIDER LOOKING-ASS CREATURES OH JESUS H. CHRIST I’M GONNA HAVE A HEART ATTA―

Playing Soma has been one of the most difficult gaming-related experiences I’ve ever had, not because it’s a particularly challenging game ―most of its puzzles and monsters, while always superbly designed and distinct from each other while also managing to find ways to make everything fit in, are rarely difficult, puzzles being especially forgiving and never too complicated, and the enemies, while menacing, are turned into much more forgiving obstacles thanks to your surprising durability and the amount of opportunities given to you to breath and analyze the situation after getting caught by any of them―, in fact I’m pretty sure I only died two times across the entire game, and only one of those deaths was ‘caused by an active foe, so yeah, Soma is everything but a hard horror game, so that’s not why I took so much time to beat it, no… but rather because it’s one of the few pieces of media that’s made me feel actually physically ill.

The installations of Pathos-II only get more decayed and seem to be more poisoned than the last, a horrifying amalgam of organic life and metal that’s sickening, but that still grabs you with the beautiful seascapes of the deep blue, especially at the beginning. There’s still some beauty at the end of the world, some sense of lingering past glory remaining in what was once a glorious center point for investigation and progress, but that only gets blurrier and blurrier as the game goes on, to the point the only thing visible is sheer horror. This alone could at times make me feel dizzy, a repulsion I couldn’t really scratch off, it’s sci-fi visual horror brought to its more grounded and depressing limit, and yet, it’s gripping. Every single area, be it the outside in the dark depths or inside one of the many facilities, shares the same visual corruption of the WAU and the general architecture of Pathos-II, but it still feels ever changing, with each of the massive metal blocks serving a different purpose, and the WAU’s many experiments to accomplish its objective taking a more twisted form at every step, it’s such a tangible horror, but still one hard to comprehend at first sight. Soma’s visual style is one of nightmares, too perfect and too horrifying, forged by human and mechanical minds, but if Soma was only that, a trip across scary futuristic places with monsters thrown in there, it would still be a commendable visual achievement, but nothing more remarkable beyond that. Luckily, this tale has a few things to say.

Immediately after Simon’s ‘’photoshoot’’ and his awakening, the game gets what some would call ‘’spooky’’, there’s some really oppressing ambience and some pretty stressful situations, but it’s mostly just that, scary in a more perceptive level, simply because things look weird and there isn’t any context that allows to begin understanding it. And horror usually works at its fullest on those contexts, when you don’t fully know what you are up against, the fear of the unknown is a extremely powerful tool… and still, the more I learnt about Soma, the more logs and files I read, the more places I visited, the more characters I talked to, the more things I did… I was just even more horrified by it. From site Upsilon to Omega, Soma feels like a true hell, a hell made from dreams and run by an AI; the WAU and its monsters are terrifying to go up against, a legion of creatures forced to ‘’live’’, from walking automats forced to waddle along the corridors and seafloor as their mind is still stuck in a past that just isn’t anymore, to impossibilities of flesh and the abhorrent, engulfed by such a perpetual pain that the only way they seemingly can communicate it is through inflicting to others; this artificial mind is pretty creative when it comes to making what should be dead still breath, and its while gaining more understanding of it that more questions appeared, and it became more and more nightmarish. The WAU seems like a rogue AI, but in reality, it simply sought a way to fully accomplish its objective, in a way, this whole ordeal was still our species’ fault, a byproduct of the investigators at Pathos-II to maintain everything beyond its limits; even at the end of the world, humans still find ways to create unimaginable suffering… tho at this point, who’s to say that the WAU can’t really ‘’think’’…

Beyond its interesting history and rich future world, all so amazingly detailed and fascinating to learn on, what compelled me about Soma above of all else and what elevated all those aspects to a brand-new horizon are its themes. Soma doesn’t take too long to ask the question: At what point what we can still be considered human? What’s the limit before we stop being… us? This is not a easy question, to say the least, Soma explores every single possible angle of it, it never feels ‘’pretentious’’ because the game always finds interesting things to explore with it. Simon is the perfect main character to throw into this dilemma, a normal guy that took a coin-toss and ended up here, decades after his time, and on his new condition he can only ponder and question himself, his existence; he’s an amazing protagonist not so much because he says sensical things, but mainly because he’s as lost and afraid as we are, and every single task and act has a monumental conundrum tied with it in a way that makes sense and I honestly wished he had even more things to say. Catherine works amazingly both as its own character and person and a reflection of Simon’s thoughts, she isn’t cold, but she’s more decided about her own condition as a machine, more accepting and understanding of what she is or what she implies, both because she has a more in-depth understanding of how… everything about this works and because she just doesn’t feel as alien in its new form as Simon does, and as such, she doesn’t ask herself the same or similar questions. Simon and Cath bounce from each other perfectly, their conversations being either extremely calm or incredibly tense, and moments like their chat during the last descent are moments that I can only qualify as… beautiful… Their trip is one full of misfortune as never-ending problems carried from mistakes from the past, there’s no real victory at any point, and those moments where it should be one are short lived, and only bring more haunting memories or impossible questions.

Questions asked to you.

At each of the main sites, you may encounter persons, or rather its remains; the last humans put on a state of eternal life, corpses with each a story to tell if it hasn’t been wiped yet, and minds placed in robots that cannot fully understand their condition, and sometimes, in these encounters, there are decisions to be made. The game only has one ending, this story only has one possible outcome, but the game still lets you decide. You can spare other’s their suffering by taking a more difficult option or path, you can leave some people still ‘’alive’’, you revive a person over and over again just to get a bit of information that you need, and yet with every single possible path, the question always lingers… is their conscience, their mind, even real? And for those that are still human, is that a life that’s worth living? Many characters in Soma find their own, sometimes more extreme answers to that, while others never manage to find it, like Simon, but then it also asks you. The game throws these same questions at the player, and that’s where much of the horror plays out, when you begin to contemplate if you are truly inflicting pain to someone else or if it’s just a mere reflection of a past life, if you’ll do the same act that you once considered extreme not so long ago, if sharing the same mind makes both lives the same, or if one’s more meaningful than the other. This is when the horror of Soma shows itself, it’s not the monsters, the metal corridors or the spooky sea spiders, it’s what’s beneath it all, a question that doesn’t expect itself to be answered, one that maybe shouldn’t be done in the first place, or maybe it should in spite of the internal turmoil it can bring.

I took every step in this game with doubt and more questions than answers, with horror and shame, and it was not until close to the end, where I met a character that hadn’t shown up until that point, that the final decision was for me to be made, and this time the answer was clear, and in a mix of a final definitive realization and sharing those final moments, I could only feel my eyes get teary…

Soma is a narrative marvel, a story that I wasn’t expecting to cause me to ask so many questions and think about it so much, and in those moments after I stopped playing after a session, those stuck out of my mind as much as the terror, if not more, tho that’s part for the course since they kind of go hand in hand… It feels too real at times, too sickening, too horrible, but in the best possible form imaginable, it’s a horror that touches the soul, and it does so while looking astonishing and sticking with you, and it will stick with me for a long while; in a way, I feel as if there could be so much more to be talked about Soma, or maybe those are questions to ask oneself…

The game ends with yet another coin-toss, this time there may seem to be a clearer winner and loser, but in both outcomes, both lead to life in an endless abyss… but at least in one of them, the sun can shine again…

Seeing this game lift so much from Megamix, both visually and even mechanically with things like the Skill Stars and the score bar warms my heart in ways I cannot describe, we Megamix enjoyers are eating, but the Rhythm Heaven fans as a whole are feasting.

I think it says a lot about a series when despite only having four entries, one of which never released outside Japan, manages to produce and share such joy, process a spirit so unique and easy to fall in love with and even when its father company seems to have toss it aside and forgot about it, both creators and fans still keep the dance going. Few games can accomplish the feat that Rhythm Heaven pulled off in each of its entries, entice us to smile, to be weird and fun, to produce animations, tributes and completely original games, the fan-works and fanbase it has cultivated is one of dear appreciation for not only the experiences themselves, but also the act of creating brand new things and enjoying them as a community. Heaven Studio has been around for a while, even if only now it finally got its 1.0 release, and it has exactly that as an objective, to unite a community, both players and creators, celebrate the fun that is in sharing and appreciating other people’s work, a perfect way to keep the paradise alive.

It’s also the most impressive fan-work I’ve ever come across in my entire life.

Heaven Studio opens such spaces of possibilities that boggle the mind so much it’s kinda hard to belive this is real at first, 50 minigames from the original series completely recreated in glorious HD art, keeping that bubbly style that Megamix introduced and making it even more pretty and charming, and if that wasn’t enough, it has 2 brand new original games that are so good at first I thought the were some kind of sub-games from Fever I didn’t check out, and make me even more excited to see what people will come up with in future releases for future remixes, ‘cause here’s the thing: there’s no real way to play the original games stand-alone. Heaven Studio is not a fan-game that just so happens to have a level editor; its whole status as a game depends on the output of fans, and the tools at disposal are anything but lacking.

Look, I’m not able to even begin to understand how anything about its editor works, this is no Mario Maker level creator, nor it needs to be. It’s complex and deep, it has all the tools needed to craft remixes, both classic, inspired by other songs, or just takes in one specific game, the end-result will go as far as your imagination and effort allows, and more games will be added as time passes to broaden the horizons even more. So many ways to experiment in such a fitting and beautiful presentation; as I said I probably will not be able to do much myself with it unless I really get into it, but luckily for us filthy non-remix creators peasants, the game has some remixes that come with the package, alongside those aforementioned two new minigames, and if some say that first impressions are all, then Heaven Studio really took it to heart

Each of the of the remixes that come with the download feel so different from one another, embodying different spirits of what’s to be done with this tool, different visual and sound styles that each feel surreal, I was laughing my ass off while playing the Code Remix not only because I was unable to believe this was real, but also because it was so damn fun, so incredibly polished and so astonishing. This really reminds me of the fan Guitar Hero and Trombone Champ songs using original music or from other games, except taken to the next level, to one of contagious happiness and sheer creativeness, one seen in even other fan remixes beyond the first ones. Over on the game’s Discord server you can see hundreds of persons haring their work, and of course not all are absolute bangers, some are more experimental and not that well charted compared to others, but all feel special, all feel full of heart, and the ones that hit, REALLY hit. I don’t even know how to begin explaining to you that one of the best and most amazing remixes I’ve ever played is one about the Story of Undertale song without seeming like a madman, but it’s the truth, and I have to speak it, it’s utterly insane, but that hasn’t stop me from loving something Rhythm Heaven before.

So many fascinating remixes, visually impressive and subversive, a community effort that’s already out of this world but that still has so much yet to offer that I can only describe as… a superb.

To celebrate the game’s release, the original developers created the Lush Remix, a remix that uses all 52 included games; this is no mere ‘’we got the game celebration’’, not just only a tribute to all the final remixes in the games of the series, is a gift, a gift that marks an end and a beginning, there’s so much yet to be seen and enjoyed, there will be meme songs along the way, maybe original ones, and a ton of Undertale/Deltarune inspired remixes (believe me, there are a ton already and it’s scary how good most are), but even right now, just one day after the game released, and after many, MANY GitHub beta releases, this is the most beautiful community effort I’ve seen, and one I can only hope it will have so much yet to give, I cannot exhaust the words to praise everyone that has worked or is contributing on Heaven Studio, this is beyond impressive.

If you aren’t familiar with the series but like this idea, hold on playing it, not only because most of its remixes are hard as balls and as a whole is really defendant on you having knowledge of the way the rhythm in these games works, but also because this is so much more worth to play when the time is right, a way to cap-off the Rhythm Heaven adventures, but also for them to keep going in brand new ways…

Also forget about Rhythm Hell, the true underworld is The Miner Grind like that remix is the cruelest thing I’ve ever bop my head to. I don’t know who is responsible for that one but hey, my outmost respects to you, you crazy bastard…

I can't believe they did it, they made a videogame based on my favorite image on the internet.

I for one do enjoy my dose of surrealism from time to time, I really think that as a form of art and expression, it can give us some of the most interesting looks of our reality and society. But there's surrealism, and then there's just there's just bullshit that happens for no reason, and Kids... it sure did happen, it sure as hell a game that it exists and I played!

But ok, maybe it's a bit too precipitated to call it surrealism, hell, it may be too precipitated to even call it a game. Kids describes itself as an ''Interactive Animation'', but even looking it with those lens it still... I still don't really understand it. There's a clear a message about crowds, peer pressure and even isolation at a young age here, all interesting and powerful themes on their own rights, but the way it's all conveyed just... doesn't work for me. I know very well that for some it did, there are some people that liked this game, but it was impossible for me to see it.

Plug & Play, which still has a lot of problems and I consider it far from perfect, at least it tackled relationships and sexuality in an original yet confusing way, it was far from perfect but it at least it something with those ideas. In Kids things... happen... they happen one, or two, or three times but it doesn't have any strength to it, or maybe they do, for some people did, but not for me... Oh god my head hurts again...

It's impossible for me to call it terrible, 'cause at the end of the day, as so many other reviews here have called it, it's... neat. It's interesting for the first couple of minutes, some moments are simple but interesting, the animation is cool, it's ffffffffffffffffffffffffine. It works, it functions, it’s not a terrible time at all, but despite its brevity it feels to long, and even if does have themes, it didn't really say anything with them.

It sucks that I really can't see the genius that some few people have seen here, and who knows, maybe as time passes, I'll be able to appreciate it a bit more... I don't think that'll be the case, and maybe I'll just forget about it in a few hours.

Who knows...

As someone completely unaware of the broader DOOM scene and that really believed that Sigil was the last Doom related thing I’d play before jumping to the other games in the series, you should have seen my face when I entered the site and saw Sigil II on the Coming Soon section (yes, that really was how I learnt this was a thing). And you know what that means! More DOOM baby! DOOM forever and ever!!! There’s even more to play and I’m bound to play it for eternity! This is my life now!-dear god…

To play part of a 30 year-old legacy in the span of 3months was something I certainly wasn’t expecting; 30 years of a game that change everything and beyond, 30 years of DOOM. I don’t want to come across or present myself as someone that knows more that I really do; playing the original game, as well as some official and ‘’official’’ expansions, doesn’t change the fact that I’m incredibly new to the incredibly road that is the encompassing story of DOOM, not only I’ve arrived incredibly late to the party, I also have yet to come close to experimenting a fraction of what other players had played through thanks to this amazing experience.

Still, I know of Doom’s history, I know what it means to so many people and even myself, I know of the impact it had, I know of its creators and of its legacy, one that still breathes to this very day; I’ve went through all of that in all of my past reviews that revolve this not-so-little shooter, and now… I am here. It’s kind of fucking crazy and unexpected to not only not being late to something OG Doom related, but also to be practically in the moment; playing it so close after it came out, and finishing it not-so-long after. The reason why this is almost as big of a deal as the original Sigil is obvious, not only is the final chapter that Romero will make for DOOM, it’s also a more than perfect gift, something to commemorate these 30 years, to celebrate this legacy… but also, something to simply enjoy right here, right now. There will be more Doom in the foreseeable future thanks to the many people who love this game, Sigil II doesn’t really signal the end of an era, rather it’s the perfect showing of how far we’ve come, and how there’s much to be had in the future, and I’ll certainly have my share of Doom after this.

So for now, as many still celebrate and reminisce, I for the first time, am able to enjoy it as it is happening, to talk about it so soon after it released, to give my personal verdict once again, and what I have to say may shock all of you…………….



Yeah extra episode good.

If I summarized the original Sigil as ‘’more Doom’’, then the best way to call Sigil II would be, quite literally, ‘’more Sigil’’. Where Sigil took the original DOOM basis and introduced a ton of spins and surprises and created some unexpected and fascinating lay-outs, Sigil II takes the spins and surprises of its predecessor and says ‘’Sure, fuck it’’ and proceeds to expand in every single aspect imaginable; higher difficulty (even at Hurt me Plenty), more crazy lay-outs, more insane encounters, more rewarding secrets; Sigil II takes into account that you’ve already beaten its previous iteration and it isn’t scared to give you a full arsenal even faster than Sigil did, and if that was already quite the challenge at times, then this is like being thrown the eight circle of hell, Dante and Virgil haven’t seen shit, this were the true pain is at.

Of course all of this sounds good, but it also means that many of the surprises that Sigil carried as a stand alone experience are basically non-existent here; every episode of DOOM felt as if was trying something new, taking a different approach on the ways you can design a series of levels, and Sigil followed suit and felt extremely unique compared to its older episodes while standing tall along side them. I didn’t exaggerate when I said that Sigil II is, quite literally, more Sigil, it truly acts as a sequel to Romero’s first expansion, but at the same time it doesn’t feel like it has enough of a personality to stand on its own merits, at least not as a completely unique episode; it’s not quite ‘’more of the same’’, but it also doesn’t offer anything new or doesn’t put enough of a twist of what was already there to be striking, and most of the maps just don’t feel as special or memorable as they once were, some have extremely cool challenges, like M8’s final boss fight or M5’s claustrophobic encounters with death, but I find difficult to remember that many moments compared to the previous expansion or even base DOOM.

Now, I know all this sounds like I’m saying that Sigil II is lesser than its predecessor, and, in that aspect, it kinda is, but you know, after so much DOOM, for once I can take a less strong identity in favor of… well, everything else. The few moments that I could call frustrating in the original expansion have been eliminated, Sigil II is once again harder than what it came before, but also polished, to the point that most confusing or frustrating stuff is nothing more than a distant memory. There are some parts that in theory should seem poorly executed and even mean, but they are instead fun as hell to overcome, like Romero is pulling pranks and making sure it’s still fun at the same time, and it works REALLY well. The maps are al so freacking fun, demanding sure, and don’t have as much of a personality or aren’t as memorable as previous stuff, and I could even complain about some of them perhaps being a bit too long, but that’s somewhat forgiven when it all is just so tightly designed, so fun to experiment around and try to overcome whatever comes your way. And then there’s M7, which is so good I can’t still quite believe it; every complain I could possibly have is just not present on there, it’s so fun, so tense, so cathartic to traverse its tribulations and mazes and reaching the end, it’s the precise culmination of what both Sigils where striving for, and it alone made me love Sigil II even more, it’s so fucking enjoyable.

Sigil II is fun, it’s still amazing, it’s DOOM in all of its glory. I wished it pushed a bit further, that it tried more new stuff, but for what its worth, some of the maps here are the culmination of everything that Romero was pursuing with its level design, the culmination of one of the possibilities that DOOM can offer, it’s a great expansion and an even better gift, and I’m so glad that I can say I’ve beaten it.
For now, and finally, I’m done with the OG DOOM, but as I said, my journey is not over, nor is everyone else’s; Romero has already confirmed that he’s working on an expansion for Doom II, but before I can even consider waiting for it, I need to finish with Hell on Earth myself first.

Long may live this fantastic game.

And happy 30th anniversary!

You are on your own.

Good lu- ...

Thrown away into the red sea in a bunch of badly together scraps that could barely be called a submarine, it’s clear from the very get go that Iron Lung doesn't hold its punches off. The mere promise of a barren universe whose life and planets have disappeared out of thin air, with only the ships and lifeless moons remaining and their last decaying bastion, it's already pretty shit-pants inducing, especially for those who already certain fear of the limitless beyond, but that's not even where the focus of the game lies, and the messed-up part if that awaits you is probably more terrifying than that premise.

OXYGEN NOTIFICATION

The Iron Lung only provides you protection against drowning in the blood sea and whatever lurks around this horrific place, and you could say that even that is debatable. You don't even get the gift of sight here, you fo have a camera, which gives you a glimpse of the outside world and it's what you'll need to get the photos of what you've been ordered to investigate, but aside from that, the bulk of the experience takes place within the four small rusty walls of the wretched ship, being forced to navigate using only a map and the coordinates on your ship, and thank god the z-axis doesn't facture in this equation. Iron Lung not only takes advantage of the fear of the unknow, it embodies it, the gameplay itself its extremely simple, only really made interesting by the fact you really can't see shit, but that small little detail is basically what the entire game takes pride of. With almost nothing to see, the sounds that creep through the bowels of the red sea are what make every neuron of the brain go into read alarm mode: from sounds like the ship catching fire (yes, even down here you aren't even safe from that), to the-

OXYGEN NOTIFICATION

-... yeah that, but most of all... the echoing grunts and sounds of the beast that swim outside of you, always out of sight, curious yet afar, being only able to get glimpses of them that are enough to make you shiver, and sometimes you do get more clear view of whatever you are investigation or stalking you... but even in those cases it's confusing, alien, bizarre. It's the primal discomfort or not knowing where you are, what you are even facing, and times things are a bit clearer, it's only to make you feel even more hopeless.

It's a magnificent example of simple yet effective design, even with its caveats. There is a ton of down-time, and while at first its effective and there are some key moments in which the game really knows what to do to not let you put your guard down, for such a relatively short experience, having to traverse huge chunks of seafloor with nothing happening outside of the same sounds you've heard before is a tad disappointing. This same design fault is what makes subsequent playthroughs a tad tedious; Iron Lung invites you to discover it, to explore its secrets, and for a game that pretends you to do that and asks you to at least play it again to discover every major thing it has offer, it certainly isn't scared to make that process take a long while and to sacrifice that feeling of paranoia and fear that made it so special. But it is that first playthrough, the key interaction with the game, what makes it so utterly genius, so horryfiying, and everything outside of this metal prison complements this idea.

OXYGEN NOTIFICATION

You are not the first to come down here, the real name of this ship reveals as much, and it only takes reading the note of the last pilot, reading the terminal entries and discovering the dark secret hidden in the farthest ends of the rift to get a good picture of what's really going on here; the universe is torn apart, even more than what the current situation would have already broken it. The very few survivors, barely more than a thousand and with their provisions dwindling, are divided, broken by meaningless wars of espionage and petty battles, making prisoners go die in the depths of the unknown while desperately trying to find ways to turn into the superior colony; even at the brink of the cease of existence, humanity finds ways to kill each other.

By digging a bit more, what you get is only more desperation; there's nothing to be had, nothing to be claimed, and you are lucky enough to maybe get a chance at freedom, or at least the one you could have in these conditions. It’s bloody genius hidden story-telling, because if at first you already though all of this seemed bad, oh let me tell ya, it gets much worse! And yet, you keep going, maybe its spite, at a certain point it's what I felt, spite of just figuring out what was going on down here and achieve freedom, and that's underlying feeling of desire, of hoping of something better while everything around seems to crumble down, what sealed the deal for me, it feel too personal of a game to also achieve what it accomplishes. There's nothing to grab onto...

But somewhere in the void, there must be hope...

OXYGEN NOTIFICATION

Theoretically, you can beat Super Hexagon in 6 minutes, the same way that, theoretically, I shouldn't have lost my sanity by playing it, but, y'know, not everything in life is as simple.

Do not be mistaken, even though I only started to log it on here very recently, my history with this game started many, many years ago, 6 to be precise. I would take me 3 years to beat the first level and another to beat the second, but why? I wasn't exactly constantly trying and failing, but rather every time I came back to it I was left broken and shattered, my will in the dust and my determination gone. So, you may think: ''Oh, is the game is actually that difficult?'' and let me tell you one thing you poor, poor sweet innocent soul, it's so much more than that...

I'm versed and have played many considered ''challenging experiences'', but I wouldn't necessarily call Super Hexagon a difficult game, it's more of a living nightmare test of patience and resilience, one that demands skill of course, but it also asks of you to embrace the defeat over and over again, it asks of you all of your mental fortitude; but even in that camp Super Hexagon shines in a different light compared to the others.

Take a game like Jump King example, one that I beat last year. It's demanding and cruel, and isn't scared of making you lose hours upon hours of progress, but there's always movement: even if you fall down, you are always going up, there's a feeling of progression, both venturing in terra ignota and when undoing a costly mistake. Super Hexagon offers an experience I could only qualify as some kind of cosmic horror, an eternal punishment that beats you over an over, and only has voice to remind you of your swindling temporal progress, when you reach further a past try, to tell you you've failed... and that you'll try again.

With each failure you learn, yes, and there can be a feeling of you getting better at it, yes; but more often than not, the satisfaction is tainted by the thought of having to start over, to fail miserably at a specific pattern, to go left instead of right or right instead of left. The game only asks you one think over the course of its six stages: evade the walls for one minute, and in Super Hexagon you either do it, or you don't, and 99% of the time, you don't.

Only three buttons are used: two to move right or left and one to restart once you've failed. Each level new obstacle, each time new ways to be a triangle for the slaughter, maybe the hexagon will change forms, or maybe the walls will unite in such a way they demand a specific dance, maybe the way the screen turns will change mid movement and cut most of your speed, or maybe the colors and music will unite to overwhelm your senses. One way or another, you are here, in this eternal dance without law or sense, and it's painful as it is captivating, is stressful as it mind-bending, is requires skill as it is sometimes RNG depENDENT GODAMNIT WHY DID THOSE PATTERNS JUST CAME ONE AFTER THE OTHER AND IT HAD TO CHANGE DIRECTION TO CUT OFF MY SPEED FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU- cough... I apologize.

Super Hexagon demands a lot, sometimes even more than you can possibly give it, but that may be part of the joke, an unfunny joke for everyone except for the game itself. Once you think you got it and beat a level, the Hyper stages come and, especially the last one, Hyper Hexagonest, a name I'll never forget despite wanting to, it will destroy you without compassion; it already reminded you at the end of Hexagonest but it reminds you once again: there's no hope, and it's at this exact point where I began to really begin think that this was the personal hell of the shape I was controlling, and when the one question the game asks you each time you lose: willst thou suck?... or willst thou soar?

Once you finally prevail, the game stops, and for a moment, the things that have been tormenting you each attempt, the shape that has been at the center almost taunting you... it gives you a final spectacle, your true final reward: for once, they surrender to you, and everything you have overcome unites to perform this kind of concert that only asks of you to relax... you have done it, and now the game asks no more questions, yet one doubt emerges within you: Was it worth it?

...maybe? I don't know, it must have been clear that I've gone absolutely bonkers, I don't know if in condition to answer that.

Simple, yet flawed, yet fascinating, Super Hexagon is a game that I can only recommend depending on your level of masochism and patience that you can have with it; it will absolutely push you till its entirety is engraved on your brain, and that is a sacrifice I cannot say is or should be for everyone.

It's kinda poetic and even a bit sad to finally finish it, a game that in a way has been with me for so long, only for me to do an existentialist dumb rant on it and say it's only kinda good, but there may be a bit of a stupid beauty on that. A game that made me despise it a time, while others I only saw the sensation of victory and overcoming the impossible.

There may be meaning in the meaningless after all.

I'll never peak in life as much as the time I beat my whole family at bowling when I was 6 years old.

It's Wii Sports, there's not much to say, really, while since then some technical demos have proven to be more fun and compact (Astro's playroom comes to mind) few have proved to be as replayable , consistent and just plain fun as this one.

It's just a fun collection of sports games with the core idea of them being as simple as possible, and sometimes that kind of dumb fun it's all you need. Bowling is the clear winner of the bunch, with tennis and golf also pretty good inclusions, but baseball was never a home run of a game for me (pun very much intended), and boxing just feels janky, sometimes the fun type of janky, but it can just devolve into shaking the controller like a madman, which none of the other games do.

It's nothing more than a pretty fun little time spender, but the fact it's even something a bit remarkable being a technical demo and a pack in title is really, REALLY shocking when you stop and think about it.

Still, it's not the best technical demo, it's not the best pack in title, it just sits in a very comfortable spot being both things, and it rocks at what it does.

This game made me take my Wii from the darkest depths of my closet, and that alone makes it my worst enemy for making me face the horrors of cables, connectors and configuration, and as the savior, for finally giving me an excuse to complete Super Mario Galaxy 2 and Resident Evil 4 in the near future.

After the absolute joy that was Twisted I went into Smooth Moves with a very optimistic view; I had seen some things and read some reviews that looked like it would follow some of the same missteps that Touched! did, but wanted to believe, how could I not trust the Wii iteration of a series of a man that steals and that barely pays his employees?

Well, to my absolute joy, I did have reasons to trust him, because Smooth Moves rocks! Not as hard as the first one or Twisted, but this is fucks, not gonna lie.

The micro-game collection this time around is very interesting: it has higher highs than usual, as it has the lowest lows of the series. They are either absolutely delightful or pretty barren and simple, hardly any in between, tho luckily there are by far more quality ones. However, all of them are similar to the ones in Touched!, in the sense that ALL are either dependent on you shaking the Wii-mote or using the pointer, nothing else. And you may be asking ''wait, if it kind of does the same thing the DS game did, just using a new control scheme that feels reiterative, what makes it good?'' and let me tell ya my dear reader, the answer is very simple... PRESENTATION!.

WarioWare has always been absolute bonkers since its inception, but this time around they just went into full bat-shit insanity mode. Do not be mistaken, a lot of the micro-games are fun on their own, but it's the way everything is shown that just sells it. The Arts, as the game calls them, are nothing more than an excuse to put the Wii Mote in funny ways, but they are a VERY good excuse; this is by far the game in the series that made me laugh the hardest, even when it gets intense: it's dumb in the best way, and invites you to be dumb, to act stupid, to do crazy shit, and the results is giving the minigames much more feedback and depth they would have had otherwise. And the arts aren't the only thing that inject rhythm into the game.

Not only both the visuals and music are crisp as hell once again, the overall game is just more irreverent, more shameless in the best way possible. Whereas past games were just Wario and his friends making games because he found a way to make money... here he founds an ancient artifact and he just takes it... WONDERFUL. The rest of the stories are once again presented in a more episodic format, and they are delightful as always, and once again a bit more crazy than usual. The side content is also pretty neat, as it is the brand-new post-game! Orbulon and Crygor are stages that appear after the final boss, and they are fantastic send offs for the character based stages.

Smooth Moves is, by far, the game in the series that asks the most out of you, but if you are willing to give it, it's one hell of a time, still flawed, nothing that was already present in previous entries and could be considered ''bad'' is gone, but it's still a very nice time, one to which I wasn't scared of being completely submerged in its stupidity. It has Jimmy P. for crying out loud, this game knows damn well what it is.

Oh, and also, one final warning, those who tell you that the Wii had not Star Fox games are not to be trusted. They are both liars and deceivers, and want you to be left unaware of the truth that Wario holds… plus, it’s also better than Star Fox Zero, which is just funny at this point.

Holy. Fucking. Shit.

Ok ok, before fully diving in, a little bit of background: A few years ago, it must had been in 2018 or 2019, while checking my Twitter feed, I saw this game. It looked pretty interesting and so I began following the developer, but after a long time without updates and beacuse I deleted my account, I lost this game's track for a long time... so imagine my sheer surprise when I see the trailer announcing the release date, and when it comes out, the internet completely blows up and everyone says that it's a masterpiece. I felt almost obligated to play it, both because of my short-lived past with it and how amazing, fun and unhinged it looked. Well, I finished it, and the question is, did I like it...?

I mean you already saw that I gave it 5 stars but also HOLY SHIT I FUCKING LOVE THIS GAME.

Look, I value A LOT of things that a game can provide as an experience, be it a story, a theme, an atmosphere,... Pizza Tower does a little thing I like to call ''being fucking insane'' and what provides is a genuine fever dream in all of the best ways. The characters don't talk at all, yet because of how they act or interact with each other they feel alive, catoony and funny as hell. The fact that The Noise only has one real major appereance in the whole game and still it's one of the mos memorable characters I've come across in a long time says a lot, and this basically applies to everyone, even the minor enemies; everyone here is animated in such a way that they feel straight out of a 90's cartoon, and the internet has clearly noticed it too.

Gameplay wise desings, I'm really sad to report, that at least to me the game feels like the bEST FUCKING 2D PLATFORMER I'VE PLAYED IN MY ENTIRE LIFE. Pizza Tower makes clear that its isnpired by Wario Land 4, Sonic and Earthworm Jim, and uses these references to create one of the most satisfiying controls, level designs and movement I've encountered, and belive me I've played my share of 2D platformers. Each level feels like its own world, the mechanics feel distinct to one another, the themes, THE MUSIC, it all just clicks and each time you fail it's just another chance to do it better and faster, and faster, AND FASTER, AND FASTER, AND FASTER, AND THEN IT'S PIZZA TIME AND THE MUSIC KICKS IN AFTER YOU BREAK JOHN GUTTER AND IT'S NON STOP RUNNING DING THE LEVEL YOU JUST DID IN REVERSEANDYOUFEELTHEPREASSUREASTHECLOCKTICKSANDYOUTRYTOGETANYTOPPINGYOUMISSEDANDBYTHESKINOFYOURTEETHSWITHSECONDSLEFT you arrive at the door, and it's this adrenaline, paired with how the level is designed, the personality and the secrets, what makes Pizza Tower, well Pizza Tower.

I think I'll never forget Peppino and his friends, enemies and adventures, it all just feel to good to be real and I just... I really cannot stress this enough, this just doesn't feel real, yet it's marvelous. I've left a ton to talk about 'cause belive me, this game has A LOT, but I want you to discover it, it's unique and full of insanity, the best kind of insanity.

Never had I thought that a game I discovered so many years ago starring an stressed and angry italian called Peppino could make me feel so much joy, but at the same time, it makes so much sense...

Videogames and war have had a... problematic relationship, at least from an outside perspective, to say the least. The amount of self-nominated ''anti-war''' USA filmography saw a huge influx during the 70's and 80's, and while there's a strong argument to be had about if most films or even ANY film can truly distance itself from the celebration inherent to violence that comes with even justifying these horrors or showcasing why certain conflicts begin in general, it's still a huge departure from the shameless propagandistic nature of the war films of the beginning of the century. Few are the videogames that have strayed away from glorification, and I believe that it has only gotten worse as decades pass. There is a humongous problem when one of, if the biggest gaming franchise has had the on-going support and sponsorship of the official American Military and many of its storylines aren't ashamed of being openly pro-interventionism and defend the American and western imperialism, but if Call of Duty was the only problematic franchise of this nature existing, it would be heaven compared to what we truly have now.

If you enjoy Call of Duty or Battlefield or any series that shares any of that common DNA, I have absolutely zero problems, and I’m sure that a lot of the games can be great and a ton of fun especially considering the multiplayer aspect, I’m no crazy politician claiming that videogames are the root of all evil and shaming and pointing those that enjoy it (Tho you’d be pressed to find any depute on the parliament that criticizes these series in the same way I do), but what I do point out is a clear endemic problems that only glorifies institutional violence more and more: the army are the good guys protecting us from these evil foreign forces, those are the ones we point to, war is only taken at face value, as an act of shooting down faceless bad guys, another process of dehumanization of humanity, and that’s scarier than any parent that thinks that Pokémon is the devil could ever conceive. But what other thing do you even do? What could you do? Attempts at deconstructing these notions result in either poor player base perception or a series of missteps that in some cases make the game send the total opposite message, so is it even worth it? Is even conceivable to try and deconstruct war in any capacity? Is such thing as an Anti-war game even possible?

Mémoire 0079 is a text based game that initially feels like exploring like reading a wiki or a series of articles; reading the initial article is impossible to get excited at the idea of being transported to a futuristic Earth and the war waging against an Empire formed in the other colonies located beyond the orbit and the stars, at the front of it all the greatest hero of all, Vega Hawthorn who gave her life riding her mech, the Mark I, to get revenge at the Empire and the evil murderers of her mother. It’s a space epic that has it all, a hero, a villain, a setting, a motivation, it’s too good to be true!.. too good to be true…

It didn’t really feel cool anymore.

I was just scared


The rabbit hole only gets deeper and deeper as you read, and incessant number of forever unsewered questions, of dirty secretes that none were supposed to find open partially to you, and even with names lost to time and passages censored beyond reparation, the curtain opens and opens until it finally breaks down; what should be obvious is clear now, this is no epic, this is war. Mémoire 0079 is about war, and all that truly implies. A tragedy of the people forced to take part it ill. The deaths of countless with the only purpose to throw around the blame to a supposed terrible enemy. The perversion and the propaganda. The ones truly behind it all. It is a conflict grander beyond any imaginable limit, not in the way because it’s worth it or it defines justice or rights, but because so much it’s lost it is incomprehensible, and that only makes it easier for lies and narratives to spur out. It stops being a game, a story, and starts feeling more like a documentary, a peep behind the veil of this galaxy rotten by those in power and lies of nameless CEO’s, but also the turmoil of those that have to fight it.

I need you to be a person. I need to hear your voice

It’s gripping in all the best ways, it makes you livid in all of the best ways, it’s unlike anything I’ve read in a very long time, only moments are only made better by the fantastic music and visual accompaniment. It nails that particular feeling that it goes for and rebels in it, it isn’t about any real occurrence, yet some parts feel like I could have read them in a news outlet with some changes, and I think that says it all. I wish I could go even deeper, not only to know more about this world, but also being able to explore every possible theme, everything it has to say, which it is a lot, but me merely describing everything would be a disservice, it deserved to be read and experienced, it’s a step on a really bright direction, a wonderful story on its own merits, and one that it has so, so much to uncover.

Even if it’s not perfect and some parts do drag a bit and don’t end up really adding much, it deserved to be called and achievement, and if any of the team members get to read this, any compliment would fall short of describing what was accomplished, it was utterly fantastic, and now more than any time, it feels like a game that it needed to be made.

Mémoire 0079 alone isn’t gonna change the state of warlike gaming in the slightest, but it’s a showing of how there’s hope, that time to time we can get a work that proves the industry at large wrong, that there are stories that can and should be told.

Of the pain that must be endured.

Here we are, you and me

Putting Monkey Watch in the second row of rhythm games is perhaps the most evil deed any of these games have ever performed… well, that and Remix 10’s whole existence. Beat the Beat: Rhythm Paradise (As it is called over here)? It appears to be quite the contrary my fellow, as it seems that the beat is BEATING MY ASS.

Back when I talked about Deltarune: Chapter 2, I mentioned that there are certain games with the ability to just make anyone happy, to express such a sensation of comfort and happiness even when something bad is happening or when losing non-stop, and this effect isn’t produced by ‘’vibes’’ alone; every element need to click and fall into place juuuuuuuuuuuuust right, feel the amount of polish and passion that it was put into a certain work is something that doesn’t happen very often, and while Rhythm Tengoku came pretty close to achieving such elements of sheer ectasis by fumbling a bit in some aspects… this is it, Luigi.

Fever isn’t the first game in the series to reach such levels of excellence, but it is the first one achieving such heights of visual and sound spectacle; it’s great to see that, despite abandoning the varying art-styles of the past games in favor of a single and consistent one, it has a fantastic sense of identity and this still feel as Rhythm Heaven as (f)ever, and the sound design and OST… H O L Y F U C K I N G S H I T. The freacking madlads literally said ‘’Yeah, we’ve composed Blue Birds, Munchy Monk, Remix 8 and goddam That’s Paradise…but wouldn’t it be crazy if we put banger lyrics in a remix centered on food?

Air Rally, Remix 4, 8 and 9, Samurai-Slice, Flock-Step, MY ABSOLUTE FAVORITE THAT IS Flipper Flop AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA I LOVE THOSE SEALS :D. I do think and maintain that DS had the overall stronger OST when looking at it as stand-alone songs, but Fever has by far the strongest collection of musical pieces in a purely rhythmic sense; that is not to say that I wouldn’t listen to some of them outside of the game (if it has lyrics, it’s ABSOLUTELY FANTASTIC), but they specially function flow for the task they went conceived, they flow exceptionally with the fantastic gameplay and you feel as by merely listening and pressing buttons you are learning rhythm, and in a way, you are indeed doing that.

Fever is a festival, on that invites you to stay as long as you like you need (specially because it gets really challenging at times), an packed with side content as much as it has bonkers main challenges. I also really appreciate that despite being on the Wii, there are no motion controls in any of the rhythm sections. They knew very well what they wanted to do, and they went for it.

Rhythm Heaven is a series that loves itself as much as it loves the people that put the time into playing it, and while Fever is not the peak of the series to me, it’s an amazing experience, one of pure joy, one about loving both music and fun

I do not know how to talk about 0_abyssalSomewhere.

I mean, in a way I do, but not in a manner it would do it total justice. It's incredibly obtuse, it doesn't make any part of it be clear, it's terrifying and tense despite death being non-existent. And yet, I loved it.

I don't usually remember my dreams very well, but when I do, they tend to be nightmares. Nightmares of me being lost in abandoned places, surrounded by cement walls, oppressive and claustrophobic, and the beings I encounter are hostile, human in form, but lacking something crucial, and that makes them terrifying. In that sense, it's uncanny how much this game replicates and evokes those exact feelings, playing this made me feel incredibly uncomfortable, but now it's stuck on my head.

I know that this review may be biased, but even excluding my own personal dumb experiences with dreams, those sounds coming for the abyss of stone and rusty copper and the cryptic and ethereal monsters made of light and night amounted to something I've never seen in another game.

I believe that its admittedly clunky controls (especially in the ''combat'', despite being so little of it) and its overly cryptic nature do stop it from achieving absolute greatness, but it's still nothing short of incredible. It's a half-hour experience that evokes feelings that other works would wish to.

I cannot wait for what's next in Tower of No One man, for the first time ever I WANT to be creeped out... oh god I'm gonna end up playing Silent Hill won't I?