DonnieWahlberg
2024
Aw, I loved this! It's just exactly what it says on the tin, a 15-20 hourish expansion (and you can keep playing after the credits) that takes the Eastward characters, world, aesthetic and fits it into a stardew valley-esque experience that also leans on John's expertise as Sam's chef. It has a nice well paced gameplay loop with plenty to do and interact with each day and lots of fun story sequences. The stamina bar is honestly a non factor after the first hour and this really is just a fun lazy time. Big thumbs up!
This game was awesome, it was REALLY nice to have a prince of persia game to play again. At first it felt more like a standard metroidvania but the game is constantly edging the challenge up, laying in the traversal abilities on top of each other and it hits that point where it doesn't just feel like a metroidvania, it does genuinely feel like a prince of persia game as well with extended chained traversal sequences that ask alot from your timing and accuracy by the time you make it to the end of the game. This game probably has the best combat of any PoP game I've played too, the moveset is fun, enemies are nice and varied very soulsy bosses, controls is smooth and responsive and when you die you know it was your fault. Not something I really thought about pre-release or expected much of, so big thumbs up.
Kind of an interesting take story/world wise, it largely eschews the more common PoP mythology and tropes, there's no sands of time or dagger here, but there's more of a tale to be told than I expected particularly if you take the time to do the side missions and read all the lore.
So I'll go with four stars, my only nitpick is I thought the art direction was great but the actual visuals in execution were a little plain, I would love to have saw something a little more stylized, particularly knowing this team worked on the rayman games previously. Overall though,, a great game and a really good kickoff to 2024.
Kind of an interesting take story/world wise, it largely eschews the more common PoP mythology and tropes, there's no sands of time or dagger here, but there's more of a tale to be told than I expected particularly if you take the time to do the side missions and read all the lore.
So I'll go with four stars, my only nitpick is I thought the art direction was great but the actual visuals in execution were a little plain, I would love to have saw something a little more stylized, particularly knowing this team worked on the rayman games previously. Overall though,, a great game and a really good kickoff to 2024.
A solid little game! It's a nice breezy metroidvania-lite platformer that offers little resistance but the visuals are nice, the music feels like disney, all the voices are spot on, just a fun game to chip away at over a week. It is probably not going to satiate anyone waiting for Silksong or the next Metroid but as a chill game, maybe you want something to play while you listen to a podcast it's perfect and I would give it a big thumbs up on that level. Didn't get to try co-op unfortunately!
This was great game. It is a little meandering in the first third or so with the princess in another castle feel to the plot just kind of shuffling you here and there but it really picks up, in the end I found Kiryu's story in particular very affecting and thoughtful. I won't say the game goes hard at this but there is a nice touch of taking previous games where you were portrayed very heroically and recentering that more neutrally and asking the character how meaningful or positive their actions really were, I liked that. Ichiban's presence or plotline feels a little softer this time but he shines a character any time he's on screen regardless with some genuine laugh out loud scenes. Great cast and story overall.
As a game it felt like an absolutely massive improvement over 7 basically in every way. You have way more control over your character and party in combat scenarios, in the actual build make-up with skill inheritence, no horrible difficult spikes grinding the pacing to a halt. Where 7 sometimes felt like a very enthusiastic proof of concept that showed RGG's inexperience in making a full on rpg in practise, this is the fully realised well polished thing.
I went 4 stars because or my personal taste it is REALLY big and it could be trimmed up and paced a little better I think, but it has to be said these devs are ridiculously generous in how much content they pack in and how fleshed out some of the side modes are. I need smaller games, not bigger games lol but if you're looking for a game you could easily spend a month or so on 100%ing, this is a good option!
As a game it felt like an absolutely massive improvement over 7 basically in every way. You have way more control over your character and party in combat scenarios, in the actual build make-up with skill inheritence, no horrible difficult spikes grinding the pacing to a halt. Where 7 sometimes felt like a very enthusiastic proof of concept that showed RGG's inexperience in making a full on rpg in practise, this is the fully realised well polished thing.
I went 4 stars because or my personal taste it is REALLY big and it could be trimmed up and paced a little better I think, but it has to be said these devs are ridiculously generous in how much content they pack in and how fleshed out some of the side modes are. I need smaller games, not bigger games lol but if you're looking for a game you could easily spend a month or so on 100%ing, this is a good option!
This is an awesome game. It looks great, sounds great, has an interesting setting and most importantly feels great to play. I came at this like a lot of others having not played a prior entry in the series but having became a From fan due to their souls work and had a blast.
It's missing a half star because just on a personal level I found the game's mission based structure a little frustrating at times when I would hit a boss wall. With most of their other games you can just go somewhere else, do something else and come back to it but I felt in this game when you hit a wall there's not a ton to do other than just keep bashing your head off it with different configurations until you got through.
Still, pretty minor in the grand scheme of things and that didn't happen often to me. The power curve is real in this game too, you will come back and obliterate bosses you struggled with, and that's a great feeling.
It's missing a half star because just on a personal level I found the game's mission based structure a little frustrating at times when I would hit a boss wall. With most of their other games you can just go somewhere else, do something else and come back to it but I felt in this game when you hit a wall there's not a ton to do other than just keep bashing your head off it with different configurations until you got through.
Still, pretty minor in the grand scheme of things and that didn't happen often to me. The power curve is real in this game too, you will come back and obliterate bosses you struggled with, and that's a great feeling.