One of the most visually impressive and beautiful games I've played in my life, easy to learn but hard to master. Usually I'm more of a story focused person when I video games and yet this one despite lacking in story will go down as one of my favourites of all time.

It's filled to brim with charisma and care, the fact that it's all hand drawn just shows all the effort and love put into it.

The Bosses also make for a mystical first time playing experience, there was not one time where I fought a boss and didn't have fun, everything in this game feels fair but difficult, only making it more rewarding when you eventually overcome a steep hill.

What can I say that hasn't been said? It's the quintessential indie game, everything being made by one guy, a few supporters as well as Hopes and Dreams.

And by god did Toby Fox do the best job imaginable with it, it's so incredibly hard for me to dislike this game, from the entertaining characters, extremely fun boss battles, beautiful story and near perfect soundtrack, Undertale just hits everything on the mark and then some.

One of the most captivating experiences I've played, especially shocking given how short of a game this is. You could experience all of Undertale in less then 15 hours. There is quite literally no reason to not at least check it out. Even if RPG's aren't you thing.

A real test to the theory of just how much your invesment in a game's story, environment, visuals and general atmosphere can allow you to overlook its clearly flawed, repetitive and at times truly frustrating gameplay. Alan Wake is a psychological horror/thriller at first, a heavily cinematic, Twin Peaks-esque mystery game at second about a writer's identity crisis melting away reality, and a third-person action game at the very last. A highly ambitious project where the core gameplay feels like the weak glue holding together its cutscenes and dialogue. Namely the flashlight-shadow monster gunplay mechanic which feels unique at first, but never feels fluid or satisfying enough, especially if you consider how the game never really improves or spices up its setpieces over the 10-12 hour playthrough. In fact, this is one of the few times, where playing on lower difficulty actually benefits a game, because you'll less likely to get frustrated and angry over something that was clearly thrown in at last minute to make the game sellable, and you can enjoy the good parts of it. Namely Remedy's excellent writing, their clever usage of multiple mediums and the oppressive feeling of unease and paranoia, where even the blurry, 7th gen visuals add its overall vibes. A flawed but special experience that makes you glad that Sam Lake and co. can do whatever they want.

I'm surprisingly really enjoying Zenless Zone Zero. Coming from someone who isn't a big fan of Hoyoverse and their games, I'm shocked I actually liked this.

My favorite part about it is probably the visuals. I really love the strong style and art direction approach they took in this game. In a way, it reminds me of P5. The "Mindscape Cinema" menus (aka Constellations/Eidolos, for those more familiar with Genshin/HSR) are literally to die for. I'm not enjoying the designs of all the characters, but some of them are really good.

The combat is also pretty enjoyable! While it isn't the most deep, it certainly is engaging. I love the flashy and smooth animations, and how you can switch around with characters. They all feel similar to each other, but are still different to play. Not to mention they all have different skills and passives.

The story isn't anything special, and the writing can be... questionable, to say the least. But it's something I'm willing to overlook, specially as I know that the stories at the start of Hoyoverse games aren't that good. They get better overtime. It happened with Genshin, it happened with Star Rail, and it'll probably happen here too. But god, does that one girl need to stop meowing in every fucking sentence. It weirds me out, man.

But of course, this is a gacha game. I still think it's a fundamentally flawed monetization concept, and commonly extremely predatory, but companies can make it a lot better depending on how they approach it. It doesn't seem like Hoyoverse will be as predatory with this game as it is with Genshin. They aren't with Star Rail either, they're actually quite generous. I hope it's the same case for Zenless Zone Zero.

Overall, there's a lot to love about the game. Both small and big things. I definitely see myself playing this more, probably a lot more. I'm not fond of spending most of my gaming time playing live services, but this one's really tempting me to do so. Not that I'll stop playing single-player and other non-live service experiences, of course. But I do have a lot of faith in this game. It even makes me want to give Star Rail another shot. Maybe I will.

Why this rate: The driving mechanics and feel give the feel of Hot Wheels, it has its own acceleration and drift mechanics, it progresses smoothly, different gameplay styles are supported with different tracks. Let's get to the bad parts, the difficulty level of the game is unbalanced, when you switch to easy mode, you always come first, in normal mode, one mistake and you lose first place. If you don't come in first place, new tracks will not be unlocked. Tools can be improved. Since I played the game with the full package, I had the opportunity to play with the fastest vehicles. However, since track control is important, not speed, and there is no rewind in the game, I did not want to master each track one by one and took it easy. For this reason, the competition disappeared and became boring, and I had to play by watching movies on the side. Anyway, while I was thinking of finishing the game easily and uninstalling it, time-limited challenge modes appeared. If you do not complete it in the given time, you cannot progress. I passed the normal tracks with pain. I thought about quitting the game many times, but thanks to the movie I watched (Resident Evil series), they balanced each other out as the Resident Evil movies were also boring.

Bronze Medal

Medal System:

0.5 stars - This game will make you its b*tch! (Coal medal)
1 star - Extremely boring (Broken medal)
1.5 stars - Boring (Empty medal)
2 stars - Not fun (Wooden medal)
2.5 stars - It could have been fun but... (Bronze medal)
3 stars - Normal fun (Silver medal)
3.5 stars - I had more fun than usual (Emerald medal)
4 stars - I had so much fun (Gold medal)
4.5 stars - I loved it but something is missing (Platinum medal)
5 stars - Special for me / my favorites (Diamond medal)

Not sure why I'm only able to choose 'Nintendo Switch' as a release platform when it's playable on Steam?

Anyways, I played through the easiest story-mode first, which left me wondering if this mode just exists as a "game reviewer" difficulty option. The REAL game (and the logically intended choice) is in the 'hardest' difficulty option - Heads Will Roll.

You will have moments of being baffled that a 95% hit rate would miss more than any attack from a Fire Emblem unit, the amount of shields were frustrating to get past and some of the bosses were a spike in difficulty...
...but that's the point. As a rouge-like the fun is found with the planning and execution of simple quests, Bartholomew as an easy companion (or meat-shield, your preference) and how your choices give you points to minmax your next life.

Is the game time consuming? Depends, if you don't want to grind a bit for the real game you can always choose an easier option, but most people wouldn't find it challenging.

Is the game difficult? Sure, but you'll need to start grinding for 5 in every basic stat, then 5 in weapon skill, then make a path for the early game and so on. Some enemies are randomly generated and could mess you up (more than the brothel imo) but it's the best way to give yourself a good foundation to build your subsequent playthroughs.

I'm not done with this game, far from it - got about 10% of the achievements so make of that what you will. The most rare achievement I've got is "Behind Bars" with a starting build as an alcoholic bard, sacrificing Bartholomew to the mighty wall before switching to an equipment-heavy defense/stall build with plenty of Canteens/Waterskins.

Going for an axe build next time, time to break all the damn shields - The wall will fall!

The most feature-rich fighting game gets even more stuff, becomes the Best Fighting Game Ever?

Actually, that's tough for me to say, because I REALLY, REALLY love Virtua Fighter 4. As much love as I have for Dead Or Alive, this game just clears it in a way that has to make Team Ninja fucking seethe. It is no doubt better than the entire Virtua Fighter series except 4, and I'm not enough of a Tekken fan to judge it against those, but Soulcalibur II did not require me to study a glossary of combos like I'm doing fucking calculus homework. So, already another point on the board.

There is a genuinely stunning simplicity to Soulcalibur that means that numbskulls like myself can play the game for hours and never feel like the game is just out of my reach. I adore fighting games but have never been good at them, and I am perfectly okay with that as long as I can have fun with them. That is what always brings me back to Dead Or Alive 2 and Soulcalibur: they are fun as hell first and foremost.

What makes SCII in particular so much fun is how dynamic its cast is. Being a weapons-based fighter, everyone has a clear and immediate signifier of what they are all about so it's super easy to figure out who you like playing as and play the hell out of them.

I personally love playing Taki because of ability to maneuver all over the arena, along with her fun spin-kick she can do out of a roll. It emphasizes speed and agility, which is what I explicitly like in a fighting game character. I am also personally fond of playing Ivy because she has great gap closers and is an excellent zoner; which if you are bad at these games, is really nice to be!

Of course, there is my weird little freak Voldo once again. They make a lot of mistakes in regards to arbitrarily excising characters in this series, but they NEVER, EVER get rid of Voldo. He is the beating Heart and Soul of this Calibur. Why is that? Because he is fucking weird as hell and exemplifies what makes this series so idiosyncratic. Virtua Fighter represents itself with Akira, the most Bland Man you could possibly dream up for a fighting game. Which, speaking as a VF fan, is very befitting of one of the most charmless fighters that exists. Soulcalibur brands itself with the leather and chains double-jointed Italian Freakazoid. Fuck, I love this series.

The leap in graphical fidelity between I and II means that Voldo looks even WEIRDER, thank God. All of the character redesigns are slight enough to be noticeable, but also good enough to be welcome. Taki's outfit is no longer a bright pink and has a closed up top, more befitting of a kunoichi, but they gave her what looks like fully modeled areolas. So, you know, it's still that kind of game.

Only real big complaint I have is with that Inferno fight, where you fight a flaming enemy in a flaming arena and as such can't see jack shit while you're fighting him. Yeah, I guess the final boss will be hard if I can't see what he's fucking doing! A real spoil on what is an addicting arcade mode knowing that asshole is at the finish line.

This is genuinely a must-play if you like fighting games. The horizontal and vertical play meaning the game is equal parts offense and defense makes for as dynamic a game as last time, weapons Master mode is a fantastic addition, the graphics are just gorgeous, and as a party game with friends it is untouchable. Also you can play as Spawn from Todd MacFarlane's Spawn.

I love Dark Souls 3 as a game but I absolutely despise it as a sequel. Fromsoft continues to hone their brand of combat drama and spectacle - but it sometimes feels like many aspects of the game took a backseat to the (apparently very pressing) desire to ask you: “Hey! Do 👏 You 👏 Re- 👏 -member 👏 Dark 👏 Souls 👏 1??” I personally dont want a continuation of a story if there isnt actually any story to tell, that sounds like the worst of both worlds to me.

Like, youre telling me (1) I dont get any satisfying answers to some long standing mysteries and narrative imagery NOR (2) do I get to sink my teeth into brand new concepts with new themes to explore and new twists and new turns? And then they had they had the gall to write Aldrich, a small glimpse into a much more compelling conclusion for the series…. In fact, it sometimes feels like Dark Souls 3 had to ship part way through several edits that left the game feeling slightly fractured and unfocused. It feels like there was a version of the game that did revolve more explicitly around Aldrich but then pivoted to include more variety or something and damn…. it just doesnt feel like it was very worth it.

I went into this game thinking it wouldn't hold that much merit since it has a bit of a meme status in the community. After playing this one, I actually really like it. The gameplay is very addictive and fun. Making your health basically the timer is a neat idea and incentives you to play through the floors as quickly and efficiently as possible. Even if you die, you can keep replaying and really getting familiar with the layout of each floor, and it's really nice seeing yourself get progressively better and better at the game. You can play as different characters and they kinda play different so it adds replay value. There's even a hard mode(even if it's not actually that much harder than just the natural difficulty.) The music is nice and the spritework is fantastic. The only real issue is the game is stuck in bleeding red and might hurt your eyes if played for too long even though you can beat the game in like a hour. I definitely enjoyed it and am surprised it hasn't received a port of any kind.

A rather pleasant experience, possibly one of the better mobile to PC ports out there. The controls are tight, the gameplay is fun and engaging and the game utilised a reactive medal system so it turned the game into a pseudo-arcade game experience.

The main mechanics are inherent to the twin-stick shooter genre and it translated quite well into the Halo franchise. You can artificially scale the difficulty via skulls (which at this point is a commonality in any Halo game). These skulls can set new gameplay conditions putting you at a clear disadvantage such as dropped weapons having reduced ammo that you can pick up or leaving the player with the overshield but no health. It's a simple but effective feature that can offer extra replayability.

The enemy designs are taken straight out of the main games and they function similar in this experience as they would do their more console title counterparts. So taking on the Covenant forces here is just as engaging and as authentic as it is in the main games. Regardless of genre, the Covenant forces are not to be underestimated.

There's not really a narrative in this game, it's a much smaller Halo experience, so that's a major limitation to it's storytelling potential. If anything, the narrative here is just a vehicle to provide enough context to get the game moving along. This experience is more gameplay centric so don't jump in expecting to take out another Halo installation.

Although it's just as authentic in it's presentation, it looks like Halo, it sounds like Halo, it plays like Halo. It's Halo. The jump into a different genre is executed very well here.

For a smaller mobile experience it's worth playing. And the PC port really does hold up, no major performance issues, everything functions as it should, it's all completely solid.

If you're a Halo fan and wanting to experience Halo in a different genre, you can't go wrong here. Especially if this title or it's sequel is on sale, it's worth a purchase.

A pretty safe sequel that brings the franchise to the 6th console gen. Considering this was a PS2 launch title and coming out just a year after the previous AC game one can't really complain about it's shorter length.

It has some new mechanics like the heat gauge and extensions, but overall it feels like a prettier AC1: PP, due to it's shorter length and added arena that consists of one ranking list.

Music was pretty good, I liked the way it looked and found the difficulty on normal to be quite manageable. Definitely helped that I went through the entire arena at some point and had absolutely no money problems anymore. Plus you could always do a human plus run if you wanted.

Good times, just kind of unremarkable in the sense that there aren't that many new interesting weapons and the final boss being a little lackluster. Curious about Another Age.

Also might be worth mentioning that I played this with the dual analogue stick mod which improved the controls significantly in my opinion.

My first foray in the Armored Core series. I had made the mistake of playing the game while doing other stuff, and while I still enjoyed the game itself I wasn't able to appreciate the games sound design.

I was able to hear a little bit of the music that was made for the game, the fast paced electronic music that thumps when I was fighting other AC's in the arena and in some of the missions were very exhilarating and added to the stress/enjoyment of zooming around and shooting my grenade arms and energy cannons.

I went thru a bit of missions first before jumping into the arena and quickly found the "easy" way of fighting with the characters in the game. But a couple of restarts were needed of course. I didn't do a HUMAN PLUS playthrough, I saved scrummed whenever I would go over the threshold of losing.

I had to remap the controls, I quickly realized that the initial controls the game gives you was the most annoying way to play the game, if you can finish the game with the original control layout you have big kudos from me. I had remapped the weapon based stuff to the triggers and bumpers, and the camera controls on the face buttons.

The story and gameplay mechanics of Armored Core 2 were very simple and repetitive but all throughout I never felt bored, it's usually the "destroy this amount of enemies", or "go to this specific are and destroy this thing but oh wait there's an enemy?!" It's just a different variant of each mission but it still felt fresh every time. Each mission kept me on my toes and while I was save scumming I still tried my best not to go into debt or get as much damage as I can.

If you can get past the clunky controls and the high skill ceiling it's a pretty amazing game.