Ran is the cutest and best wife. I will murder anyone who says otherwise. Even in 2003, I chose Ran. And I'll choose Ran until I die. #RanStans

It's alright. I mean, it was awesome back in the day, but in 2021, I'm more of a Rune Factory guy. Still, it's charming as all hell, and the graphics are...fine. It's crazy how much the music has stuck with me, though. Within two notes I was humming the tunes.

The game gets a 5/5 in my heart, but playing it now, yeah, it's dated. BANGER spring and summer soundtrack, though.

Pretty nice little surprise! The game starts out reeeaaaally slow. It isn't until 2-3 hours in when you can start mixing and matching perks does it take off. I feel like there's an amazing game in here somewhere, but it doesn't quite reach that. Ranged combat feels bad. Movement speed is too slow. There is a shocking lack of trackers for a game all about tracking EXP.

Great artstyle, simple-yet-addictive music, and gameplay that is just good enough not to drag down the transformation aspect of the game.

I have a rule that I don't put a star rating on a game unless I play it for at LEAST two hours. I gave up on Tunic after about 90 minutes. This game is like going back in time 15 years in the worst ways possible.

The gameplay is incredibly basic. It's like they took Souls games and said "hey, lets make this not at all fun." Very little character customization, very little in the way of progression. Which would be absolutely fine if the gameplay was fun. It's not. Swing, roll, swing, roll. And your stamina is so limited you just stand around waiting for it to recover every 5 seconds.

They took design from the last ten years that said "if we point a light at a door, or use a specific color to indicate where a player can go, that can help" and threw it out the window, replacing it with incredibly difficult to navigate areas. Right after the first boss, there's a pathway behind a pillar that you MUST travel behind to get to the critical path. What the actual hell.

Just...a baffling game. Obtuse for obtuse sake, difficult for difficulty's sake. Bleh. At least it's on Gamepass.

Probably not as big of a surprise as it would be at launch, but I have to say that this game is simply fantastic. The sheer amount of dialogue is staggering, and many of it is contextual.

The characters are still in my mind weeks later. Cosmo made me laugh heartily, and my wife, who never even glances at the screen while I game, was howling every time he came on screen. Drax was also a high point, with one liners that could be heard in any comedy movie. The only sore spot for me was Rocket. He's a huge pain in the ass for 2/3 of the game, and was very grating.

The combat was serviceable. I quite liked the team aspect of it, but playing as Quill was pretty snoozy. Elemental guns didn't add a lot.

I really liked the story when it was smaller, but when it got into big-time galaxy shenanigans, I lost interest a bit. They tried to keep it personal, but the last handful of hours got to be a little predictable.

Overall, I liked it quite a bit. Poor sales hopefully won't dampen the possibility of a sequel, though I fear they may. If you have Gamepass, this is a no brainer.

EARLY ACCESS REVIEW

It's another co-op survival game. You know the drill. What I do like about games like this, Valheim, and the like, is that there's a definitive ending. This isn't so rare with recent releases, but having a point where you can go "okay, we're done" is such a huge benefit for myself and my friends and how we play.

It's a top-down Minecraft. Not much more to say. Recent patches have added more unique weapons, upgrades, craftables, and content, so I'm hopeful for the future. Definitely worth checking out!

An enjoyable enough rogue-lite. However, what it really is is a simple cult simulator. Your early time with the game is spent 50/50 cult babysitter/dungeon crawler, but it devolves into 90/10 cult babysitter/dungeon crawler near the end of the game.

What is there is enjoyable, but it feels like it could be a little fleshed out on both ends. The dungeon crawling is incredibly simple: you have an attack, a spell, and a dodge. Each feel incredibly snappy, which is great. The management is rewarding, but incredibly time-consuming and gets repetitive. Once you start to build up a large number of followers, it's incredibly chaotic, and not in a good way.

The theme is incredible and what saves is what would be a fairly standard game. The soundtrack is really unique and catchy. The graphics are cute and creepy. The story is just interesting enough to push you forward.

Another positive is that there is a definitive ending. Endless rogue-lites aren't my thing, so having a point where you can hang up your hat is a big bonus.