Retro low-poly sensibilities ooze from the seams of Pseudoregalia as you fly across the dungeon's dreamy landscape. A certain nostalgia permeates the entire bite-sized playtime, calling back to the cozy and creative weirdness of N64 era platformers in the vein of Glover.

Pseudoregalia is the epitome of mechanics first; story is a vague suggestion here. Movement is fluid, all about freedom of expression, and consistently feels better as you grab more upgrades. The level design also heavily encourages intentional sequence breaking, while always letting you feel clever for enacting it. Combat isn't a nuisance, but it's just a visual flourish at best; it really has no reason to exist here outside of a single upgrade to gain more air and the two bosses (tutorial + endgame) the game throws at you.

Lengthwise, it never overstays its welcome, but there does come a point where traversing feels a little too time consuming to backtrack for any missed power-ups, even with the full toolkit and speed that comes with. I played with the map update, and could imagine the frustration if I hadn't, as it's a difficult game to mentally map out. For $5, it's absolutely worth your time, as the fluidity of the movement mechanics, aesthetic, and overall gamefeel are really satisfying, and it knows when to take a bow. Will be following the dev, as they clearly have a great grasp on good game design that can only improve.

Retro low-poly sensibilities ooze from the seams of Pseudoregalia as you fly across the dungeon's dreamy landscape. A certain nostalgia permeates the entire bite-sized playtime, calling back to the cozy and creative weirdness of N64 era platformers in the vein of Glover.

Pseudoregalia is the epitome of mechanics first; story is a vague suggestion here. Movement is fluid, all about freedom of expression, and consistently feels better as you grab more upgrades. The level design also heavily encourages intentional sequence breaking, while always letting you feel clever for enacting it. Combat isn't a nuisance, but it's just a visual flourish at best; it really has no reason to exist here outside of a single upgrade to gain more air and the two bosses (tutorial + endgame) the game throws at you.

Lengthwise, it never overstays its welcome, but there does come a point where traversing feels a little too time consuming to backtrack for any missed power-ups, even with the full toolkit and speed that comes with. I played with the map update, and could imagine the frustration if I hadn't, as it's a difficult game to mentally map out. For $5, it's absolutely worth your time, as the fluidity of the movement mechanics, aesthetic, and overall gamefeel are really satisfying, and it knows when to take a bow. Will be following the dev, as they clearly have a great grasp on good game design that can only improve.

Retro low-poly sensibilities ooze from the seams of Pseudoregalia as you fly across the dungeon's dreamy landscape. A certain nostalgia permeates the entire bite-sized playtime, calling back to the cozy and creative weirdness of N64 era platformers in the vein of Glover.

Pseudoregalia is the epitome of mechanics first; story is a vague suggestion here. Movement is fluid, all about freedom of expression, and consistently feels better as you grab more upgrades. The level design also heavily encourages intentional sequence breaking, while always letting you feel clever for enacting it. Combat isn't a nuisance, but it's just a visual flourish at best; it really has no reason to exist here outside of a single upgrade to gain more air and the two bosses (tutorial + endgame) the game throws at you.

Lengthwise, it never overstays its welcome, but there does come a point where traversing feels a little too time consuming to backtrack for any missed power-ups, even with the full toolkit and speed that comes with. I played with the map update, and could imagine the frustration if I hadn't, as it's a difficult game to mentally map out. For $5, it's absolutely worth your time, as the fluidity of the movement mechanics, aesthetic, and overall gamefeel are really satisfying, and it knows when to take a bow. Will be following the dev, as they clearly have a great grasp on good game design that can only improve.

Balatro is fine. It has much more depth than something like Vampire Survivors, but exponentially less than something like Slay the Spire; I think overall it strikes a good balance. There's a lot of variety in the kind of decks you can build and how you influence the hands played, with most hand types being viable (straights still do not feel worth it though). After a couple of solid updates, there's also an expected and fun level of deck-building strategy you can employ with every run on all difficulties (high/gold stakes were previously re-roll RNG fests).

Once you learn the lay of the land though, most runs will easily devolve into the game-breaking dopamine rush that falls in line with the gambling aesthetic, which dampens the long-term replayability. It's most fun when you're still learning how it works, and after that, mid-run before your deck is fully fleshed out and the hand you play doesn't matter. One thing that I have zero criticisms of here is the stunning yet simple presentation; it has been tweaked and polished to premium-yet-retro perfection.