After completing Void Stranger (my personal GOTY 2023), I decided to give a previous System Erasure game a shot. I was impressed by Zero Ranger as much as their next game, I even enjoyed it even more in some aspects.

Maybe it is not an impressive game for someone who 1CC'ed every single Cave game, but I enjoyed every single segment in this shmup. It was a joy getting used to every single pattern and trying to push your limits. While being hard in the second half of the game, I had no feeling that the game was unfair. I will never forget the last 3 bosses, one of the most memorable gaming experiences.

Great visuals with some interesting artistic decisions and an amazing soundtrack. There are also some unexpected narrative segments, which spice up the experience even more and make it unique and memorable.

I have mixed feelings only about one thing - how they decided to add a challenge in the ending. Without spoiling that much, it made the progression to the end a bit too long. I understand their decision and respect it though. On the other hand, it is still great to replay that game after getting used to more and more patterns. A choice of two ships and several powerups add more to the replay value. I certainly want to try to do a 1cc run and get into other shmups more now.

Lovely game, can not praise it and geniuses from System Erasure enough. They became one of my favourite video game developers.

A game which I decided to play just to "celebrate" Halloween turned out to be really great, and it is probably one of my favorite sidescroller games now! I am definitely impressed by that.

Stellar visual style and top notch soundtrack (one of my personal favorites now as well), which makes whole experience as close to arcades as possible in terms of presentation (which is impressive for fairly weak PC Engine). Really fun platforming, interesting enemy patterns. I am surprised how nearly everything can be telegraphed pretty well. I especially enjoy bosses. They can feel simplistic sometimes, but they are still challenging enough and they somewhat makes think of them as a puzzle, like any good boss fights should. The levels are also enjoyable, which can also reward your thrill for exploration (the shift from classic Castlevania to Igavania in SotN makes more sense now).

There are certainly moments which are making me extra salty. For example, I would like less short platforms with jumping enemies, which can knock you back. But this moment and the others are mostly my skill issue, not the game's issue. Also I do think Maria's a bit too busted, she is borderline auto win character, honeslty. These are the only cons I can think of, except some other nitpicks, which can not ruin the whole experience.

While writing this review I have an urge to explore other routes for levels, which tells something about Rondo of Blood. It cerainly aged pretty well, and it is actually one of the retro games which I can recommend without any doubt alongside Doom, Super Metroid and Megaman X.

Great CRPG, certainly one of the best even among the "golden classics" on the Infinity Engine. It is also an improvement over Original Sin 1, which I enjoyed in terms of battle system (those elements combination and interaction with the scenery never get old), but it didn't click with me in other aspects. There are more interesting lore elements, plot with more fun twists, way less bland dialogues (some of them genuinely made me laugh, which is an achievement for a video game writing), more appealing area design. As an overall package it is pretty hard to think of better game in the genre (except, potentially, BG3, but I will check it later). If you compare it story wise with other games, there are better alternatives for sure. The story is relatively straightforward, but still was pretty entertaining to follow.

As cons I will mention several things. DOS2 can be dragging sometimes in terms of pacing, especially in the last act. I expected a bit more with "pre-made" characters story quests, they do make experience more engaging, they are still a bit lacking (I still recommend everyone to start the game with them, you can customize their builds however you want anyway). The game sometimes seems a bit restrictive due to necessity to find areas more appropriate for your current level. Also some fights can be too frustrating without cheese tactics.

Nevertheless, still amazing CRPG, which helped to revitalize the genre (I remember everyone being doomsayers during Mass Effect days, these are in the past).

I am still not sure if it is the GOTY 2023 for me, but this is certainly the game I will NEVER forget. It is the experience, which is so unique, it evoked feelings I have never felt in a video game before, and I believe I tried various stuff in the medium. Such an experience, totally recommend to give it a shot, if you can imagine yourself playing sokoban style games. This game is indie as it gets.

The rest of the review is spoiler free, but it still can set some expectations and change your blind playthrough experience. You have been warned.

As it has been mentioned, Void Stranger takes sokoban style puzzle formula and adds tile replacement as the main mechanic. And then it offers more mechanics, which are in perfect harmony with the core gameplay. But wait, here is more! The game is not restricted to it, it has so much to explore, and a lot of things in this can be get by thinking outside of the box and doing such interactions which are honestly mind blowing for me.

Also, while writing in this game can be too goofy sometimes, the plot is presented in fitting enigmatic way, which was at least intriguing. Some of the storyline vignettes are interconnected with the gameplay in a very creative way. Very rare thing for a game, which is not a "walking sim". Diverse soundtrack and memorable stylized art style are also worth the praise.

There are some things, which made my experience a bit worse. I wish there were more conventional way to revisit certain segments in Void Stranger. Despite the main progression of it having very good balance between too hand hold-ish and too cryptic, I still think that some segments were too obtuse for me (glad that there is some sort of consensus on one of them). But you know what? It did not stopped me, I still WANTED to do my best and see the grand finale (well, sort of). Oh boy, I did not regret it in the slightest!

Bravo, System Erasure, now I want to see what I’ve missed, try Zero Ranger out and look forward to whatever you will be cooking in the future.

One of those games I love, started a lot of times, but for unknown reasons I haven't beaten until recently. Still my favourite Final Fantasy installment and the best job system implementation in series - pretty flexible and gives various possibilities for problem solving. Also, setting and pretty solid plot (with some flaws for sure) made me still interested in Ivalice universe despite the fact that I'm kind of burned out by FF in general.

Also War of the Lions is pretty great in terms of its additional content - fun coop missions, aesthetically pleasing and fitting cutscenes, new characters. But PSP version has very strange slowdown issues by default - don't forget to find a fan fix for that.

I've never expected such release on Game Pass without prior announcements to be that good. I'm sure nobody expected that too.

I thought, it would be a pretty simple character action game, which is solely designed around rhythm gimmick. That's not the case. You also have various unlockable moves and combos, which give various options, parry, and assist mechanic! Keeping these gameplay elements and different enemy patterns in mind is sometimes very chaotic and confusing. But it is such a pleasure to try to adapt to this chaos and control everything of that. If the rhythm game element wasn't presented here, it would be still a tightly designed game. Rhythm itself simplifies (with helping audio cues) and hardens (with some tricky "simon says-ish" segments or unusual beats of some bgm's) at the same time. Gameplay is an absolute blast, and I can't strees it enough.

Maybe it is not that hard game "objectively", but I've personally found second half of the game to be an amusing challenge, which I was glad to get through. I can see myself playing more post-game content and probably replaying the whole game. It says something, considering that I'm very casual at such games (I've never get further than Devil Hunter in DMC5).

More or less noticable cons for me:
-Some QTEs were a little bit confusing, because they do not always follow the rhythm (or at least I had such a feeling, I can be wrong).
-Platforming is my least favourite part of the game - 3d platforming was decent and fun enough, but 2d one was a bit stiff and unpolished (maybe low range of Chai's jumps are the culprits of that).
-Dialogues and jokes are very hit or miss, but I've at least chuckled at some of them. And the whole charming Saturday Morning Cartoon aesthetic does not allow me to be truly angry at it.

I hope Hi-Fi Rush is just a starting point for 2023 to be an amazing year for gaming.

Korsica is very hot