It is really insane how many times this game can keep building up on the mystery and twists in the story every chapter. For sure one of those "the less you know going in, the better".

Just a small note though, it feels to me less of a puzzle game and more of an adventure or visual novel. A lot of the stronger points for me are the narrative and style, the puzzles are fun and there are some really creative situations but overall I feel like they are simple enough to support the story without getting the player "too stuck" for being overly complicated, which is probably the better choice for the style of game it is.

I don't play League of Legends, but I loved Moonlighter (from the same devs) and the game seemed interesting enough for me to check it out, but it really isn't grabbing me.

Nothing seems especially wrong about it, but if I had to say what exactly made me give up, it was an encounter with multiple creatures were there wasn't any opposite elements for me to engage with the main mechanic favorably for me. At that point I felt like the game wasn't trying to make it interesting for me and just putting barriers, it didn't feel fun.

20 Minutes Till Dawn is one of the many new Bullet Heaven games. It is more close to a twin stick shooter as you do aim and press a button to shoot, so it isn't as automatic as others in the genre. The basic loop is there, choose upgrades, find synergies (some things scale of move speed so you'll chase move speed upgrades and so on), and it feels great to see your power growing and obliterating enemies on a good run.

But as with other games in the genre, an important piece is the meta progression outside of each run and more on a global level. The game does have increasingly hard difficulties as "Darkness" levels, but most other unlockable features are based on currency, and they are mostly characters and weapons, so while there is a variety of options to go for, they are almost all available to unlock immediately, and there is not a lot of variety on upgrades during the run, which makes it feel unsurprising very early.

Also something minor but that really bothers me: if you have two options in the UI and the difference between the two is just that one is red and the other is white, I won't really know which one is selected playing on a controller. it works on mouse-over, but for controllers it really doesn't.

So in summary, it is fun to play, but meta progression feels unrewarding and I started to feel the fatigue very early, still worth it for the four to five hours I played, but I'm not inclined to sink more time.

Ys IX is at the same time very similar but also quite different from Ys VIII. Lacrimosa of Dana is my only experience with Ys before this game so I don't have much else to compare it too.

On one hand the gameplay, combat and exploration are quite fun, and just as good, but I feel the setting doesn't quite work as much to me. Equipment progression also has some bumps, I guess they had a specific balance of crafting and purchasing that I wasn't quite grasping.

The group of characters you meet is quite endearing and I really liked the interactions between them. I might not think the game is as great as VIII (tough act to follow really), but it was still a fantastic journey, let's see where the wind takes us next.

One of those hard to review games when I don't think there is something wrong, it is just not vibing with me.

The good stuff: The visuals are great and the story has a great mix of creepy and funny.

The (maybe) bad stuff: The gameplay drags, probably too much backtracking? I usually really enjoy crafting systems so a game about crafting shouldn't make me feel like this but I just don't want to craft another pot and fill it with water again.

Played until the end of the "first act" (collecting four souls) and I feel satisfied.

I played the demo of Tunic and even though I loved the concept I found it a little too difficult for me, delayed my playthrough until now, played on "Reduced" combat difficult and have no regrets.

The puzzles and discovery are definitely what I'm here for. I love the concept of discovering this instructions manual, which is actually very interactive with really cool touches. The little hints of the previous owner scribbled on it. Unveiling the neat hidden stuff in this world little by little, and reaching the culmination as you get the last page you are missing.

The game is full of amazing and heartfelt moments, try to play as much as possible without looking at guides, it is very worth it.

It's actually been a while since I played it, and I never truly "finished" it but I'm considering it as much for the time I spent with it.

I love the flower breeding aspect of Animal Crossing, and this feels very much like it, but with bees. Getting the perfect matches and stats you want can be very time consuming but it feels great when you get the results.

The menus can be a bit convoluted, and I do wish some processes were more passive/automated because I don't really care about manually extracting honey, but I can see some players might enjoy the economy management more than me, I was just in there to combine the bees though.