DuChomp
This needed to walk so Dark Souls 3 could run
This game introduced a lot of gameplay fixes on the original’s design with many unique features that make it a great experience amongst the souls-borne series. It also introduced a lot of what I disliked in the series such as linear areas, returning to the hub area and speaking to an NPC to level up rather than at any bonfire, and warping between every bonfire (the interconnected world of DS1 can never be topped)
That, plus a lot of cheap-shot placed enemies and insta-kill attacks with a soul-tier system that makes it hard to play with friends left a sour taste in my mouth when playing
This game introduced a lot of gameplay fixes on the original’s design with many unique features that make it a great experience amongst the souls-borne series. It also introduced a lot of what I disliked in the series such as linear areas, returning to the hub area and speaking to an NPC to level up rather than at any bonfire, and warping between every bonfire (the interconnected world of DS1 can never be topped)
That, plus a lot of cheap-shot placed enemies and insta-kill attacks with a soul-tier system that makes it hard to play with friends left a sour taste in my mouth when playing
A charming love letter to a niche genre while standing on it’s own
This game pays homage to the Phillips CDi Zelda games, using alot of the original talent that worked on them and mimicking it’s design so well that it feels like it could have been made for the original console at the time. The love and soul that went into making this game can be felt and it makes the experience a joy on that alone. It’s a simple enough game to play in a single sitting and honestly recommended since there’s a lot to memorize with its metroidvania style of progression. You’ll be backtracking a lot thorough levels, combing every wall and surface to get any secrets; it’s a fairly easy game to 100% without a guide, just a keen eye.
My only gripe with the game is that the cutscenes did not match to the humor of its inspiration, animations/characters didn’t leave as much of an impact except for a small handful of scenes. Some scenes felt like attempts to be parodied of the CDi games but they just made me go “I wish I was watching the original cutscenes instead.” The animation quality wasn’t consistent between each other, but that did add another layer of charm that the game gave off.
This game pays homage to the Phillips CDi Zelda games, using alot of the original talent that worked on them and mimicking it’s design so well that it feels like it could have been made for the original console at the time. The love and soul that went into making this game can be felt and it makes the experience a joy on that alone. It’s a simple enough game to play in a single sitting and honestly recommended since there’s a lot to memorize with its metroidvania style of progression. You’ll be backtracking a lot thorough levels, combing every wall and surface to get any secrets; it’s a fairly easy game to 100% without a guide, just a keen eye.
My only gripe with the game is that the cutscenes did not match to the humor of its inspiration, animations/characters didn’t leave as much of an impact except for a small handful of scenes. Some scenes felt like attempts to be parodied of the CDi games but they just made me go “I wish I was watching the original cutscenes instead.” The animation quality wasn’t consistent between each other, but that did add another layer of charm that the game gave off.
2000
A bloated sequel
It takes everything from the original game but tries to add more and more. Levels so large you need to fast travel between pads, an expanded moveset that starts to get confusing on what you can do and what context sensitive solution the game wants, and way more collectables. Put that all together in levels that have you constantly jump between just to set up more challenges and you are in for more of an annoyance than a fun time.
It takes everything from the original game but tries to add more and more. Levels so large you need to fast travel between pads, an expanded moveset that starts to get confusing on what you can do and what context sensitive solution the game wants, and way more collectables. Put that all together in levels that have you constantly jump between just to set up more challenges and you are in for more of an annoyance than a fun time.
The most 2011 game of all time. A dark, gritty zombie game packed to the brim with dated immersive mechanics to give a sense of “realism.”
The controls are clunky; you get used to them but it’s like saying you mastered walking in shoes 5 sizes too big. You’re constantly bodyblocked by teammates and are forced to fight tons of enemies in close-quarter hallways. Forced aim-assist makes gunplay near impossible, along with no steady source to find bullets until 2/3rds the way through finishing. The neatest thing to the controls was a dodge jump that isn’t really told to you, it’s super useful for dealing with all the special zombies and different than every other game from the era giving you a little bitch push move just for a little wiggle room.
My biggest issue with this game has always been the RPG-elements, specifically with the weapons. Any time I tried to optimize my loadout, I would get frustrated from investing all my money and resources into my cool baseball bat, only to find the shop just rotated and there’s a new baseball bat that’s way stronger and sinking my money into that, but then 10 minutes of walking outside I found a new baseball bat even stronger. I had to basically put on a blindfold any time I looked at my weapons and throw all my money into a fire pit just to hope I do enough damage to the next zombie I encounter. I’ve always been told “just ignore it” and if that’s really the best response for a game about getting weapons to kill zombies with, then I think there’s a problem. 99% of quests are “go here, grab this, but zombies are in the way” and if finding the way to most optimally kill zombies should be “ignored” then what do you even have left? A mediocre looter-shooter? After a while, our group did missions by running past the zombies and I just thought to myself what’s the point of doing them if the reward is just more resources to kill the zombies that we are skipping? I didn’t complain out loud though, it got the game over with quicker 😎
I feel like most people have fond memories of this game because they could kick the shit out of a zombie with friends; it’s really this games biggest blessing because playing alone will just bore the hell out of you since your only friend is the baseball bat that you’re gonna replace in the next 10 minutes.
The controls are clunky; you get used to them but it’s like saying you mastered walking in shoes 5 sizes too big. You’re constantly bodyblocked by teammates and are forced to fight tons of enemies in close-quarter hallways. Forced aim-assist makes gunplay near impossible, along with no steady source to find bullets until 2/3rds the way through finishing. The neatest thing to the controls was a dodge jump that isn’t really told to you, it’s super useful for dealing with all the special zombies and different than every other game from the era giving you a little bitch push move just for a little wiggle room.
My biggest issue with this game has always been the RPG-elements, specifically with the weapons. Any time I tried to optimize my loadout, I would get frustrated from investing all my money and resources into my cool baseball bat, only to find the shop just rotated and there’s a new baseball bat that’s way stronger and sinking my money into that, but then 10 minutes of walking outside I found a new baseball bat even stronger. I had to basically put on a blindfold any time I looked at my weapons and throw all my money into a fire pit just to hope I do enough damage to the next zombie I encounter. I’ve always been told “just ignore it” and if that’s really the best response for a game about getting weapons to kill zombies with, then I think there’s a problem. 99% of quests are “go here, grab this, but zombies are in the way” and if finding the way to most optimally kill zombies should be “ignored” then what do you even have left? A mediocre looter-shooter? After a while, our group did missions by running past the zombies and I just thought to myself what’s the point of doing them if the reward is just more resources to kill the zombies that we are skipping? I didn’t complain out loud though, it got the game over with quicker 😎
I feel like most people have fond memories of this game because they could kick the shit out of a zombie with friends; it’s really this games biggest blessing because playing alone will just bore the hell out of you since your only friend is the baseball bat that you’re gonna replace in the next 10 minutes.
2024
A mixed bag of things you already played, but with 1 new thing brought to the table
The gameplay is mostly uninspired; the exploration feels like BotW, the survival feels like RUST, the monster taming feel like Pokémon, this game is just a mix of successful things and tries to be all of them at once.
The unique feature that makes this stand out from the games that copy this same recipe is the utility with the creatures you collect, the Pals. Each unique species of Pal can perform certain tasks in combat as well as when put to work at a base, making your party composition change based on what your objective is: help you explore unreachable areas, focus on harvesting a specific resource, even increase your carry load to organize/move base resources. Mixed in is a personality system that adds randomized traits to help or hinder your Pal’s performance, making you constantly analyze who you want to keep and who to throw out.
This added utility of base building to the Pals give a refreshing breath of depth to a creature-collecting game than what we haven’t gotten with many in the genre, but don’t let that sway you into thinking “this is what Pokémon SHOULD be doing!!” It does not emulate that adventurous feeling you get from traveling the world to become a Pokémaster, it’s just a survival game with automation. You won’t fall in love with your Chikpi named Cluckles because you aren’t bonding with them, you are just looking for the most optimal Pal to get the job done. Another note, the Pal designs are very uninspired, feeling like borderline plagiarism to a lot of Pokémon designs. I’m really hoping this is not made with AI and is just uninspired designs; discrediting a lack of imagination as “probably AI” doesn’t help the fight against its use.
The gameplay is mostly uninspired; the exploration feels like BotW, the survival feels like RUST, the monster taming feel like Pokémon, this game is just a mix of successful things and tries to be all of them at once.
The unique feature that makes this stand out from the games that copy this same recipe is the utility with the creatures you collect, the Pals. Each unique species of Pal can perform certain tasks in combat as well as when put to work at a base, making your party composition change based on what your objective is: help you explore unreachable areas, focus on harvesting a specific resource, even increase your carry load to organize/move base resources. Mixed in is a personality system that adds randomized traits to help or hinder your Pal’s performance, making you constantly analyze who you want to keep and who to throw out.
This added utility of base building to the Pals give a refreshing breath of depth to a creature-collecting game than what we haven’t gotten with many in the genre, but don’t let that sway you into thinking “this is what Pokémon SHOULD be doing!!” It does not emulate that adventurous feeling you get from traveling the world to become a Pokémaster, it’s just a survival game with automation. You won’t fall in love with your Chikpi named Cluckles because you aren’t bonding with them, you are just looking for the most optimal Pal to get the job done. Another note, the Pal designs are very uninspired, feeling like borderline plagiarism to a lot of Pokémon designs. I’m really hoping this is not made with AI and is just uninspired designs; discrediting a lack of imagination as “probably AI” doesn’t help the fight against its use.
2023
I abandoned this game and tried to review it on here before it officially released
It feels like a very uninspired game. All the mechanics and gameplay you have seen before. Farming similar to Stardew Valley, characters you can talk to for puddle-deep personalities and give gifts like in Stardew Valley, even crafting like every game made after 2012, including Stardew Valley but somehow worse. The movement even feels taken from Breath of the Wild (the entire beginning is just the Shrine of Ressurection) but with how barren and empty the world is, you’ll honestly forget you can even climb walls or paraglide.
The game bottlenecks your pace with time-waster mechanics like leveling and a serverwide day-night cycle that acts more of an inconvenience with NPCs and stores closing off to go to bed because it’s very hard being a computer working a digital job. Nothing comes out at night to make it worth exploring, or if they do, it’s too subtle to even notice; it’s just a block of time that the game becomes less enjoyable.
This is a little rant, but the characters in this game are the most bland thing I have ever felt in a game. You have the shy nerd who underestimates herself, the edgy lone wolf who acts tough and distant but really has a soft side, or a gentle giant robot who doesn’t fully understand humans but tries her best to coexist. You’ve seen these characters as like 1-time quest givers in 100 other games. Mixed in with every single person going “hohoho I’m so glad I met you stranger, here’s a bunch of items, go do my quest now” puts you in a constant loop of meeting new characters who just feel like a chore checklist. That’s another thing, the whole plot is your are some weird outsider who is so interesting but the race of people that you encounter are just purple humans?? They think we don’t have generic grasslands like New Zealand?? I guarantee in 3 years you will not be able to name a single one of these characters, they will have no lasting impression on you.
The online also feels completely pointless, all you can really do is talk in a server chat and you can all chop down a tree that requires more than 1 person, that’s it as far as being a community game goes. You can invite people into your farm but you can’t do anything, just look at the dollhouse you made and go “that’s pretty.” It’s also an online only game so you have to be logged in to even play, just to do a bunch of things all by yourself.
Picking up this game felt more like adding another list of chores for you to add to your every day than it did to feel good while unwinding from a real day’s work by playing. I played from when the beta opened up until it’s first event where you had to grind for literal days to get exclusive items only available during it and I really didn’t get an impression that I would want to come back even if they improved the game, it just feels bland to its core.
It feels like a very uninspired game. All the mechanics and gameplay you have seen before. Farming similar to Stardew Valley, characters you can talk to for puddle-deep personalities and give gifts like in Stardew Valley, even crafting like every game made after 2012, including Stardew Valley but somehow worse. The movement even feels taken from Breath of the Wild (the entire beginning is just the Shrine of Ressurection) but with how barren and empty the world is, you’ll honestly forget you can even climb walls or paraglide.
The game bottlenecks your pace with time-waster mechanics like leveling and a serverwide day-night cycle that acts more of an inconvenience with NPCs and stores closing off to go to bed because it’s very hard being a computer working a digital job. Nothing comes out at night to make it worth exploring, or if they do, it’s too subtle to even notice; it’s just a block of time that the game becomes less enjoyable.
This is a little rant, but the characters in this game are the most bland thing I have ever felt in a game. You have the shy nerd who underestimates herself, the edgy lone wolf who acts tough and distant but really has a soft side, or a gentle giant robot who doesn’t fully understand humans but tries her best to coexist. You’ve seen these characters as like 1-time quest givers in 100 other games. Mixed in with every single person going “hohoho I’m so glad I met you stranger, here’s a bunch of items, go do my quest now” puts you in a constant loop of meeting new characters who just feel like a chore checklist. That’s another thing, the whole plot is your are some weird outsider who is so interesting but the race of people that you encounter are just purple humans?? They think we don’t have generic grasslands like New Zealand?? I guarantee in 3 years you will not be able to name a single one of these characters, they will have no lasting impression on you.
The online also feels completely pointless, all you can really do is talk in a server chat and you can all chop down a tree that requires more than 1 person, that’s it as far as being a community game goes. You can invite people into your farm but you can’t do anything, just look at the dollhouse you made and go “that’s pretty.” It’s also an online only game so you have to be logged in to even play, just to do a bunch of things all by yourself.
Picking up this game felt more like adding another list of chores for you to add to your every day than it did to feel good while unwinding from a real day’s work by playing. I played from when the beta opened up until it’s first event where you had to grind for literal days to get exclusive items only available during it and I really didn’t get an impression that I would want to come back even if they improved the game, it just feels bland to its core.
Fantastic Mario entry, up there with the classics
Gimmicky levels all fun to play and intense challenge levels for thrill seekers. The online multiplayer is a unique experience but does not compare to couch co-op. Easy mode characters to play as if you have inebriated friends who can’t even sit without falling on their ass.
It’s biggest flaw is lack of ending fanfare. The bosses at the end of worlds was really lackluster and some worlds just straight up didn’t have a boss, just a handshake for beating it and then shoving you off to the next. Completing the special stages doesn’t even feel that gratifying, just a pat on the head for spending $60 on the game
Gimmicky levels all fun to play and intense challenge levels for thrill seekers. The online multiplayer is a unique experience but does not compare to couch co-op. Easy mode characters to play as if you have inebriated friends who can’t even sit without falling on their ass.
It’s biggest flaw is lack of ending fanfare. The bosses at the end of worlds was really lackluster and some worlds just straight up didn’t have a boss, just a handshake for beating it and then shoving you off to the next. Completing the special stages doesn’t even feel that gratifying, just a pat on the head for spending $60 on the game
1998
The peak of Action-Movie Video Game
An over-the-top plot with simple gameplay, loaded with millions of tiny details/tricks for veterans to go back and use on another playthrough. It may seem dated in graphics but you can feel the passion it's developers put into it and that makes it stand above anything you can render today.
An over-the-top plot with simple gameplay, loaded with millions of tiny details/tricks for veterans to go back and use on another playthrough. It may seem dated in graphics but you can feel the passion it's developers put into it and that makes it stand above anything you can render today.
2023
I replayed this with 5 people instead of 2 (using mods) and it was significantly better. Still needs alot of quality of life improvements to be a go-to game for friends night. Only recommend with 4+ people with the mod, only way to consistently finish the day without losing all loot.
This game is elevated to a 5/5 through the use of mods and the dedicated community behind them; so many that change the game in its entirety or fix any issue you had with the base game
This game is elevated to a 5/5 through the use of mods and the dedicated community behind them; so many that change the game in its entirety or fix any issue you had with the base game
The definitive game of the trilogy
Large roster of fighters, plenty of game modes for single or multiplayer, and tons of customization. Plenty of fanservice with canon and non-canon content. The story mode has you replaying it as different characters to see the events of the manga from their perspective, it doesn’t feel repetitive since your character is constantly obtaining new moves to use in the next battle. Story is done through just dialogue boxes so it can feel a bit stale. There’s a newly added experience system that lets you customize each character even further to improve their base stats for some game modes.
Large roster of fighters, plenty of game modes for single or multiplayer, and tons of customization. Plenty of fanservice with canon and non-canon content. The story mode has you replaying it as different characters to see the events of the manga from their perspective, it doesn’t feel repetitive since your character is constantly obtaining new moves to use in the next battle. Story is done through just dialogue boxes so it can feel a bit stale. There’s a newly added experience system that lets you customize each character even further to improve their base stats for some game modes.
1994
Some of the best movement controls I’ve ever played with. The puzzles and challenges can be hit or miss with being mostly patience tests with waiting and timing, but anything that requires moving or getting up some ledge really feel satisfying.
2023
When I first bought this game it said “Battlepass coming soon” and I said “nah”
I’m willing to buy a multiplayer game with an interesting idea but I’m not gonna get invested if it will shut down months later because I didn’t get scammed for FOMO skins
I’m willing to buy a multiplayer game with an interesting idea but I’m not gonna get invested if it will shut down months later because I didn’t get scammed for FOMO skins
1994
A perfect blend of variety in platforming
This game goes from jumping on platforms, to on-rails minecart challenges, to being chased by a beaver on a wheel. Most levels have an original idea to them that flow nicely with the main gameplay. It’s the perfect length for a platformer.
This game goes from jumping on platforms, to on-rails minecart challenges, to being chased by a beaver on a wheel. Most levels have an original idea to them that flow nicely with the main gameplay. It’s the perfect length for a platformer.
The amount of gameplay variety it has to offers is astonishing. Great for a singleplayer, cooperative, or competitive experience with friends
2009
I already avoid phone calls from my relatives, why did someone create a new place for them to annoy me