LEN
24 Reviews liked by LEN
Overcooked! 2
2018
This is the dark souls of cooking games
Bravely Default
2013
wasnt able to finish cause my dog ate my 3ds but the combat was really good!! the brave system lats you get through random encounters that are your level or lower super quickly
Bravely Default
2013
Would be peak if true ending wasn't at painful to get to as it is.
EarthBound
1994
Inscryption
2021
This review contains spoilers
Act 1 starts the game off incredibly strong with a good mix of atmosphere, roguelike elements, puzzles and most of all a fun card game. The game takes full advantage of being a single player digital card game in its creative bosses.
Act 2 hurt the game a lot. It's now a deck building game with no punishment for dying. The pixel art style doesn't have anywhere near the same effect, and for a card game it especially sucks as there's no cool art on the cards anymore, which especially hurts as the game gives you a ton of new mechanics, so trying to learn the new cards based on crappy pixel scribbles makes deck building more tedious than it should be. It does more or less keep the good writing and fun bosses from before though, and while I think the puzzles aren't implemented nearly as well, there's still some rewards for exploration.
Act 3 basically puts itself in the middle, by bringing back the roguelike elements of building your deck based on random choices, but you can no longer pick which path to take and thus which kinds of choices you'll be given. Instead its just a case of randomly finding buffs or new cards on the ground. It also brings back "punishments" for dying, but being relatively light and only setting you back to the past checkpoints.
I felt like act 3 had the weakest of the card games, and while they expand some mechanics as you progress (which were already seen in act 2...), by the time you've finally got an interesting card game to play you only have a couple of opponents left. But the highlight of act 3 is definitely how it capitalises on the crazy bosses. Act 3's bosses are some of the most memorable not just in card games but gaming in general.
The epilogue had some neat ideas, but it was purely story and the card games are just window dressing. This is especially the case in the very last one, which presents a really neat Yu-Gi-Oh set up, but then takes like 5 minutes of mindless playing with zero strategy as the story slowly happens in the background.
Overall I'd say Inscryption is a game that starts very strong and while it never gets "bad", 2/3rds of the game are simply only playable thanks to the huge effort on part 1 to hook you into the world and story.
Act 2 hurt the game a lot. It's now a deck building game with no punishment for dying. The pixel art style doesn't have anywhere near the same effect, and for a card game it especially sucks as there's no cool art on the cards anymore, which especially hurts as the game gives you a ton of new mechanics, so trying to learn the new cards based on crappy pixel scribbles makes deck building more tedious than it should be. It does more or less keep the good writing and fun bosses from before though, and while I think the puzzles aren't implemented nearly as well, there's still some rewards for exploration.
Act 3 basically puts itself in the middle, by bringing back the roguelike elements of building your deck based on random choices, but you can no longer pick which path to take and thus which kinds of choices you'll be given. Instead its just a case of randomly finding buffs or new cards on the ground. It also brings back "punishments" for dying, but being relatively light and only setting you back to the past checkpoints.
I felt like act 3 had the weakest of the card games, and while they expand some mechanics as you progress (which were already seen in act 2...), by the time you've finally got an interesting card game to play you only have a couple of opponents left. But the highlight of act 3 is definitely how it capitalises on the crazy bosses. Act 3's bosses are some of the most memorable not just in card games but gaming in general.
The epilogue had some neat ideas, but it was purely story and the card games are just window dressing. This is especially the case in the very last one, which presents a really neat Yu-Gi-Oh set up, but then takes like 5 minutes of mindless playing with zero strategy as the story slowly happens in the background.
Overall I'd say Inscryption is a game that starts very strong and while it never gets "bad", 2/3rds of the game are simply only playable thanks to the huge effort on part 1 to hook you into the world and story.
Inscryption
2021
This review contains spoilers
I understand the acts thing was meaningful story-wise but after the first act (which was amazing) I stopped having fun, and gameplay became a chore to progress the story. Loved the atmosphere and art sytle(s), would've scored much higher if the gameplay was more consistent
Yoko Taro and Company's second entry into the Voice of Cards series is another exciting, yet mildly aggrivating, adventure into the quirky world of its eccentric creator. While stylistically there is nothing different from the first game (which makes sense granted the tight turnaround in release windows,) I had an overall enjoyable time with the fresh cast of characters and their beautiful character portraits. Music again was fantastic, as longtime Taro collaborator Keiichi Okabe has been elected to compose, and dare I say is even better overall than the first game. Because I normally do not speak on specific plot points in my reviews, as to avoid spoilers, I won't speak on too much as style and presentation are practically that of The Isle Dragon Roars. I do think the story overall in this game could have been better, and its ambiguity is something I always love from Taro, however I'm not sure if it was told in the best way.
My gripes with The Forsaken Maiden are that it's a genuinely aggrivating experience at some points from a gameplay perspective, there are moments where it's just genuinely so annoying that it nearly becomes unbearable. The random encounter rate for example is abysmal, namely on the ocean which de-emphasizes exploration. The game piece movement is laughably slow, I get that this is probably done to enhance the "board game feeling" of flipping over cards as you traverse, but feels awful over time. This game also has an odd bout with difficulty. Now I get that games do not need to be easy, they shouldn't necessarily cater to the players wishes and be a cakewalk, however Voice of Cards' endgame chapter is straight up unfriendly to the player in many ways. The inability to save at certain points is weird, the lack of warning before difficult fights is even weirder, and at one point it becomes more or less impossible to grind for the last few levels.
Combat in this game felt... bad at points. One of the cooler things is how often they thrust you with temporary party members who all bring something unique to the table, however when you are without those party members, only one of the members of your team feel actually good to use in combat. The other major party member is good as a buff mage in the four person parties, but when reduced to your typical three feels very underwhelming. Fights that feel like they SHOULD be a breeze late game are just, too long for really no reason.
One funny thing with VoC: The Forsaken Maiden was that sometimes the DM/Narrator would be reading a prompt, stop the take, and restart the voice line for the card. This was hilarious and happened a good four to five times throughout the game. I don't know why, I didn't find any of the takes to be egregious, but an interesting choice to leave them in on release.
If you are a fan of Yoko Taro/JRPG's you may like this game quite a bit, if not you may want to pass. Even though I was a bit down on the negative aspects of the game, I had an overall good time.
My gripes with The Forsaken Maiden are that it's a genuinely aggrivating experience at some points from a gameplay perspective, there are moments where it's just genuinely so annoying that it nearly becomes unbearable. The random encounter rate for example is abysmal, namely on the ocean which de-emphasizes exploration. The game piece movement is laughably slow, I get that this is probably done to enhance the "board game feeling" of flipping over cards as you traverse, but feels awful over time. This game also has an odd bout with difficulty. Now I get that games do not need to be easy, they shouldn't necessarily cater to the players wishes and be a cakewalk, however Voice of Cards' endgame chapter is straight up unfriendly to the player in many ways. The inability to save at certain points is weird, the lack of warning before difficult fights is even weirder, and at one point it becomes more or less impossible to grind for the last few levels.
Combat in this game felt... bad at points. One of the cooler things is how often they thrust you with temporary party members who all bring something unique to the table, however when you are without those party members, only one of the members of your team feel actually good to use in combat. The other major party member is good as a buff mage in the four person parties, but when reduced to your typical three feels very underwhelming. Fights that feel like they SHOULD be a breeze late game are just, too long for really no reason.
One funny thing with VoC: The Forsaken Maiden was that sometimes the DM/Narrator would be reading a prompt, stop the take, and restart the voice line for the card. This was hilarious and happened a good four to five times throughout the game. I don't know why, I didn't find any of the takes to be egregious, but an interesting choice to leave them in on release.
If you are a fan of Yoko Taro/JRPG's you may like this game quite a bit, if not you may want to pass. Even though I was a bit down on the negative aspects of the game, I had an overall good time.
Untitled Goose Game
2019
I've always had a struggle making evil decisions in games because of my empathy, but this one.... it came so naturally
Sea of Stars
2023
These guys really had the balls to say "Let's make a better version of fucking Chrono Trigger"