A game that I remember being disappointed with at first but over time have started to warm to more.

The game lacks the interconnected world, balanced encounters and overall tightness of it's predecessor but these days I can appreciate it more as being a bit of an oddity in the series that tried different things. Power Stance is rad, Rat King convenant is dickishly gratifying and the gender change coffin that doesn't explain itself at all. Also like they gave you more ring slots and had fun with ring effects more...the game even has in-game voice chat build in with a certain ring! I mean, I'd never ever want to use it but it's there! Weird!

Overall, the game has a lot of problems but it's still an enjoyable action RPG I can come back to if I wanna have a good time. Just a shame that the bosses really suck.

The only Souls games that, after I finished it the first time, I lacked any desire to replay. The game is Good: it handles fine, some of the environments look really nice, online works how it should, has some pretty hype boss fights...but that's all it really is to me. It's just a Good game.

The biggest problem with Dark Souls III is that there really isn't anything special about it. I mean, the Mound Makers are a really interesting idea for a covenant but even they're not enough to make me replay through it again! It has memorable moments and a overall consistent quality but there's nothing about Dark Souls III that makes me want to replay it over any of the other Souls games. Although I will say, that final boss fight...pretty dope.

Never thought I'd say this about a Souls style game but DAMN, what a good ass action game!

The way sword combat is played in this game is thrilling and fast. I love how on your toes you need to be whilst playing this game, especially in boss fights. Sekiro took the offense-focused combat of Bloodborne but instead really made you go in on the enemy. Whilst in Bloodborne you were encouraged to be offensive, you could also hang back a lot and do pokes still. In Sekiro, the addition of the stamina meter for enemies means that if you want to beat guys, you need to be constantly in their face attacking and deflecting all at once. For normal enemies this can feel cool but when you fight a boss like Genichiro, the game reaches a whole other level.

Fantastic combat, great boss fights, some cool vertical level design to prop up the new movement and stealth options. The only things that bring the game down from being top tier is a lack of more fantastical areas, a lack of more adventurous world design and a lack of DLC. Think about it...a DLC with new expanded areas, some stuff to expand the lore, maybe some customisable costumes or a few new weapons....what could have been...

Spelunky feels unique in that, whilst being a multiple floor dungeon run type of roguelike, it surpasses the average game of the genre by having a lot of variables in it (and i don't mean potion effects). There's different variants of levels, different types of levels you can access on each floor...SECRETS! The game is built on secrets! What seems at first to be maybe a simple but fun indiana jones simulator turns into a game that has a lot more depth than you first thought. The world of Spelunky is always interesting and dynamic and for that I have to give it a buttload of credit cus it's what makes this game timeless and replayable even 7 years after first playing it.

An incredibly memorable metroidvania. Wanna explore an ancient civilization's ruins? Want to feel like you're constantly treading around in unknown and unfamiliar territory and the fear and excitement that it brings? Then get out of my house and play La Mulana!!

Excellent music, wonderful pixel art, love how different and unique each zone is with their own style and gimmicks, love how they connect together in surprising ways but one thing I love that I particularly wanna point out is how the game really makes you feel like you're exploring somewhere unknown with it's puzzles. The puzzles in La Mulana can be tough to solve and sometimes require some out of the box thinking and hints for a lot of the puzzles are written on stone tablets that litter the ruins. So what do you do as an explorer? Well you write 'em down and keep a little journal of all your discoveries...except you're doing it in real life in a paper booklet or word document and it's so cool going around zones, noticing strange pieces of the environment or blockades and getting your note book out to try and see if there's anything to help you. I know this isn't the first game to do that stuff but it's a really unique feeling that I had with this game that really elevated it to me.

Also I really appreciate that despite how harsh and punishing the game can be to you, it still has a good sense of humour about itself so that it never feels like it's laughing at you sadistically and more that it's trying to sweeten the punishment that you've been handed. Whatever I've talked a lot about this: La Mulana is amazing. Play it.

A damn fine sequel. A game that started with me feeling a little bummed out that I wasn't going to have the same experience as the first game, due to me going "hey! that's that thing from the first game that needs that other thing!" within my first hour, soon turned into a similar experience of pure, amazing, metroidvania mystery.

When the game starts going, it really starts going. Giving you a bunch of areas to explore immediately, puzzles and objects that are newly added to the series and just that same pang of exploration and discovery that only a La Mulana game can give you. The middle third of this game was one of my favourite sections in games.

The new portrait art is fantastic, it gives NPCs a bit more of a personality and also is a good excuse for the team to show off their amazing artist that works for them (i forget his name sorry!!). Movement feels better, game flows pretty nicely and the areas all have their own distinct styles still.

The only things really keeping this game back from being as good as the first one for me is maybe an over reliance on mantra spells for puzzle solutions, a pretty insane (by la mulana standards) puzzle two thirds of the way through that left me utterly stumped even after its solution and a sloppy ending, where the last dungeon is just a mini-boss rush with hell dungeon rooms from the PREVIOUS game stapled in between...and then the final boss is also very similar to the final boss of the first game with no real surprises. Also, no hell dungeon??? C'mon!....BUT, those issues aside, I can't help but heavily recommend this game and the original for people who love good metroidvanias.

Pretty neat beat em up. As long as you go in not expecting a proper no more heroes game, I think you'll have a good time. Has some cool surprises, each level having a different gaming aesthetic is nice and direction wise it feels like the most Suda game Suda has been attached to in the past like...decade. Downside is the game has zero replayability for a beat em up, combat starts to get dull half way through and the levels are WAYYYYYY too long. If they cut the levels by half I think this game would benefit a lot from it. Otherwise, it's good?...


------UPDATED 21/08/21 ----------------
Alright so I replayed this game two and a half years later with a lot more knowledge of Suda's previous games and his career. I will say this time around the last third of the game affected me more than previously and I found it to be really sweet! The idea of Suda killing his own past and examining video-games as a whole and also his past experiences is a really cool idea that I think he pulls off pretty well! Also after finishing The Silver Case/Flower, Sun and Rain/The 25th Ward I could now play the visual novel sections and point at the screen going "KURUMIZAWA POG!" where I couldn't before.

Whilst I was more positive on that stuff, if there's one negative that didn't change it's the length of these levels ohmygoddddd. I can put up with some laborious gameplay but man! Honestly if the levels were just a bit shorter/more varied this game would be stellar to me. But...it's still good!

Pretty cool game. Really like the idea of the game, where you have 8 different characters and you travel across the world meeting them and going through their stories. Want to say I was a fan of at least half the cast character wise, OST is great, enjoy the fact that most characters have a unique action associated to them (my favourite one being H'aanit's duel a.k.a beat the SHIT out of this random guy) and I had a lot of fun with the combat, especially with Primrose and her Bewildering Grace!

The reason I dropped this game, despite enjoying it mostly, was the fact I had hit 40ish hours in, was leveled ten levels higher than the highest zones available and still had to go through at least 4 chapters each with 6 other characters. Because of how the world works, completing the early chapters for a character means going through low level zones, which meant that I was a level 50ish party going against level 20 guys...for hours...because I needed to play through most people's chapter 2 segments...and by that point the combat kinda became trivial and the little bits of story and character development unfortunately weren't enough to keep me hooked on playing it through all the inessential combat.

It's a shame, cus the base of this game is really cool and would happily finish a more refined version of this game.

Be a dog. No wait, be a chick. Hmmm...actually, be a panther. No! Be a bear! WAIT, you can be a dinosaur be a dinosaur! Nah, let's be reasonable and be a dog. Okay, now survive in tokyo by eating and mating. Okay, now visit the chicken party that's being held in the forest outside tokyo for funsies. Oh fuck, you died on the way there, now you take control of your baby you got from when you fucked that alpha queen. Now you'll wanna seperate yourself from your father a bit so maybe put these cool glasses on your pomeranian face and wear a schoolgirl outfit. Cute! Yooooo, everything's poisoned. You're poisoned, the food you're eating is poisoned and the only place that isn't poisoned is a district that's overrun with dinosaurs. Okay now you're dead. I told you you should've been the dinosaur!



Also there's a story mode that involves time travel.

Beautiful game. Everything about it is simple. The story is generally simple, the gameplay and the puzzles are kinda simple and graphically it isn't much of a looker...but damn does this game leave a lasting impression for me.

The story is the best part of the game and presents the experiences and past trauma of J.J. in a simple but effective manner, as you start to understand the background of J.J.'s life through text conversations with friends/family, chasing Emily (her gf who went missing when visiting an island with her) and also from being chased by a mysterious disfigured monster. The story handles the serious subject matter well and despite it being a horror game whose main gimmick is dismembering yourself, the game manages to give a positive and sweet message by the end of it all that really got to me, even on a second playthrough.

Your reward for exploring the levels are doughnuts, which are the collectibles of the game. The more you collect them, the more messages and texts start to reappear on J.J.'s phone and they're fantastic! The dialogue between J.J. and her friends/family are a really great representation of what a person like J.J. would act and talk like for her age and her demeanor. The same also goes for her friends. They're great little pieces of character development and stories of what J.J's life was like before vising the island and also showing what lead to the events of the island to come into being.

The puzzles are good and never feel so simple that they shouldn't be there or so hard that they ruin the flow of the game. Also, the main gimmick of dismembering J.J. and using her different body parts is gruesomely fun.

The unlockable costumes are cool. Game doesn't have much of an OST but when the main theme plays it's like UNFH! The look of the game, like I said before, is pretty simple but they do a good job of keeping the creepy atmosphere and during certain sequences and events it suitably gives some fantastical and psychedelic visuals.

I had a blast playing through The Missing and came away feeling pretty touched and emotional overwhelmed. Story and character writing are fantastic. Dismembering body parts is rad. The theme for the game OWNS. The end. Play this.