A game that I just could not help but root for even when it was doing things I wasn't a huge fan of. John Johanas is really going places, between this and Evil Within 2 the guy seems to really know what he's doing. This is insanely polished and focused. Really dug the artstyle and the character designs are great as well. Funny enough I think the audio mixing by default leaves the music a little quiet.

Despite being pretty alright at both action games and rhythm games, something about the way this works here never quite clicked in my head, though I acknowledge that's likely on my end. The fact I saw this through regardless is a testament to how good everything else is. That said, I do think that a lot of the finer points of character action design were not quite nailed here - optimal play seems to be spamming your assists whenever they get off cooldown while hammering along to the beat, and having some enemies designed to be invulnerable to all but one attack that is on a cooldown, even if a short cooldown, I find kind of antithetical to how games like this should work. Excited to see what Tango and specifically what John Johanas ends up doing next.

idk what everyone finds so hard to understand with this game basically the theme is "don't be talking shit on the internet"




(real review to come lol, not finished yet)

My favorite steam review of all time is of this game and I am going to present it below in full:

we all knew the sky was really big...

but did you know it was THIS BIG??? (793 MB)

Not an original opinion here but this is one of the worst games I've ever played lmao. Why does Yuji Naka think his stupid one button philosophy is a good idea for a 3D platformer of all things? Losing the ability to jump with certain costumes kneecaps the level design so hard and the decision is entirely arbitrary.

Movement feel is terrible, art/designs are mostly garish and simply bizarre, technical problems are everywhere. The "Tims" are just... not explained? Anywhere? And they seem to be the only point of the collectible gems as well so the fact that it's this obtuse is baffling. A platformer with awful platforming, a collectathon with bland, confusing collectibles that aren't even placed in interesting locations. Don't even get me started on the "combat."

Why is there just terrible raw mo-cap data slapped on exaggerated cartoony characters with no extra work done... why do all of the NPCs just vanish when you get close to them... why does the world have this nauseating stage morph effect always going on... I'm just rambling at this point.

This entire trainwreck is absolutely hilarious to the point where if you didn't already consider him to be a bad game director I think this has to force you to reevaluate Naka's entire legacy. Final point: Arzest should be shut down for crimes against humanity, we can't keep letting them get away with it

Had a really great time with this one! I respect it a ton and Mikami is amazing. The level design here is just so labyrinthian and it gets very satisfying to finally start to learn the layout of the mansion the further in you go. A great argument for fixed camera angles, the game looks absolutely gorgeous still and the camera does a lot to add to that moody atmosphere. Crimson heads are a fantastic idea and add so much to the tension, forcing you to plan out routes to avoid creating more potential headache later on. Some small complaints: It'd be real nice to skip door opening animations... at the time it obviously wasn't possible but I'd love to see this version of the game patched or reworked to have more seamless loading. Also, the inventory management got just a bit too out of hand for me at times. With all that being said, I'm really glad I finally played this.