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.

I loved the first one and felt like it had a very strong emotional core while fully understanding the character. There was still room for narrative improvement though, and I really hoped to find that here. The technical prowess on display is awesome to play around with, but after the new sheen wears off, you're left with a game that is largely a derivative, stripped down version of the previous two entries, in both story and gameplay. Miles and Peter play exactly the same, and combat being so gadget focused feels like the spider was taken out of Spider-Man. Bosses are HP sponges that exist to pad playtime and tire you of the combat mechanics.

The story being so incredibly fast-paced and haphazard gives no breathing room to let tension or attachments grow, really hurting the thematic focus of second chances and redemption. The weaker narrative makes the relatively simple combat and checklist-esque structure feel repetitive quickly, especially considering most people have gone through 30+ hours of it already in past entries. There are a few moments where the writing begins to stand out, and some side content is better integrated into the world, but it just never takes the full narrative leap or shows any teeth like the first game to make you truly care about what's going on.

This is actually a well crafted, difficult co-op game. It's a cool experience that really forces you to engage with whoever you're playing with, and isn't just a cute gimme game for one person who plays games and another who's never touched one before. There are similarities to Getting Over It, but with Bread & Fred, you aren't actively fighting against the controls to win.

There are a lot of accessibility options if the game feels too frustrating, and it's quite rewarding being in total sync while mastering the simple mechanics the game throws at you. There are some intense moments of frustration when you realize a pitfall takes you so far back but the game doesn't begin feeling prohibitively difficult until the last section or so. What ends up hurting it most is the length considering how simple the mechanics are.

The magnum opus of the franchise in my opinion. More zombies, more ammo, more locations, and more bosses. It does everything right while going bigger than RE1. The design of the RPD is near flawless in enemy/item placement and navigation flow. The sewer and labs are less exciting but quick enough to get through that there's no time to get tired of them. The zapping mechanic is very light but still cool nonetheless, adding extra layers and variation for replayability.

I don't replay games often but the classic RE games are fantastic at encouraging it while keeping things fresh and fun. It scratches an itch in my brain going through this with the prior run's knowledge; being able to zone in on single-pixel corners for specific items and beat the game in two hours makes you feel like a human cheat code. Zero complaints other than maybe the puzzles being toddler-esque fit the square in the square hole kinda stuff.

There are a few reviews here giving the Director's Cut version of RE1 shit, getting it mixed up with the Dual-Shock DC that has the clown car music. That one deserves everything it gets but I believe the original DC is the definitive way to play classic Resident Evil 1 aside from the DS port. What a fantastic game and start to the franchise.

Assuming you're already comfortable with the tank controls that the series utilizes up to 5, RE1 DC holds up fantastically. There are some PSX era flourishes that could be changed for quality of life purposes (quick map button, auto-knife equip with button-press) that the DS version introduces but this version still plays very well for being close to 30 years old. More than any other game in the series, it feels like one big puzzle that becomes an absolute joy to put together quickly on replays. Ammo, healing, items, and enemies are all placed and paced in an almost perfect, deliberate manner. The Spencer Mansion is beautifully simple, and the environment expands in scope without ever feeling overlong. Quick to navigate and quick to beat, even on a first playthrough, it naturally encourages while rewarding you for learning and replaying with that knowledge.

The DC having arrange mode expands replayability in interesting ways after becoming grotesquely familiar with the game's placements. My only real complaint about this game is that hunters fucking suck. I can appreciate backfilling the mansion after I assume most people have essentially cleared it out but I never want to see that head-rolling end game screen again.

Played in anticipation of the remake and it's just a total blast from start to finish. You can feel the trailblazing done with the over-the-shoulder third-person perspective and aiming style; wonderful transition of the series into 3D. Tank controls seem like they'd be a nuisance with the environment and movement system here but the game, enemies, and loot are designed around them beautifully.

Every single gun is both viable and fun to use, which makes longer engagements quite fun as you switch out weapons quickly through the inventory. Because of the combat pacing here, inventory switching felt almost humorous, giving the sense of actually setting a briefcase down on the battlefield to switch guns every two or so shots depending on the engagement. There are actually very few enemies that exist as bullet sponges, so Leon feels especially powerful.

The script and character writing is perfectly aware and campy fun, with the level design really shining in the village. The game slowly transforms into a straight action shooter but the team shows they still knows horror. There are even a couple moments as late as island that ramp the horror up a bit in the lab with the Regenerators.

For a 20 hour game, the pacing is mostly pretty great, only fizzling out towards the end of Island, despite Castle being relatively long. Shooting, looting, buying, and even just moving feels fun here in a way very few games achieve. Also, a shoutout to the most high-effort HD fan project I've ever seen. It was incredible playing through with it.

Truly a landmark in gaming. For every complaint I have, there are two or three things I love. I played Primehack and had an enhanced FOV since the original was so narrow, so I can't comment on any original hiccups in that department. The map and world design is incredibly atmospheric, with every new area feeling like a visual treat, Phendrana Drifts in particular. Prime is a commendable transition into the 3D space for the franchise, and it being the first attempt makes all missteps easy to forgive. Backtracking is a little rough (maybe just me but I never felt like I totally got the hang of which elevator went where without double checking), the mid-game feels unfinished (you fight 3 bosses, play for 5 hours, and then fight 3 more at the tail end), and some weapons feel underutilized (I barely touched the super variants until the Metroid Prime fight) but it's a blast and really retains the feel of a 2D Metroid game at its core, with platforming as a main focus.

With a standard first time playthrough being around 10 hours, it never overstays its welcome. I personally enjoyed the artifact hunt, as it forced me to run through every area one more time to find collectibles and feel how much stronger I'd become. It was cool having "oh shit, that was there this whole time!" moments littered throughout as I collected them.

The reviews for this game on here make me feel like I'm back on MyAnimeList in 2013, just massively contrarian takes fully overstuffed with window-dressed verbiage passed off as "critical analysis." If you want to see what I mean, check out the reviews for Porter Robinson's "Shelter" on MAL.

The game is fine, it's a $5 reverse bullet hell simulator that hits the dopamine button for "number go up" fans. No micro transactions, no deceptive game design, and no hidden depth; What you see is what you get. It's fun to build a loadout, unlock some shit, then put it down forever. It's the video game equivalent to junk food or reality TV, not some hidden paradigm of forward thinking game design. It's a brainless time killer while presenting itself as such shamelessly, and it's also fine if you just don't like that.

This is a $60 game in a $30 container. It's refreshing to play a game with such obvious Dreamcast and PS2 design philosophy in 2023. It's just fun to play, plain and simple. Not to mention the influence Edgar Wright's work on Hot Fuzz and Baby Driver had here; the needle drops, and their integration are sublime. The art direction is incredibly vibrant, and so lively that I'm almost overstimulated looking virtually anywhere.

There are consistently seamless transitions from cell-shaded gameplay to 2D cutscenes, and the staunch commitment to 60+fps it makes the whole experience fluid; the game is polished out the ass. There's a lot of depth to the combat if you're willing to play ball, although it would have been nice to have timings other than 4/4. It's more restrictive than Devil May Cry by nature of being rhythm based but there is a huge array of ways to play and a high skill ceiling if you don't want to just parry on beat or spam partner abilities. The color-coded enemies are annoying and there's no manual lock-on, but those are my only real complaints here combat-wise.

I have a few grievances but overall am super satisfied. The game is over-tutorialized to hell, I assume to really settle those unfamiliar with character action games, and there's no way to skip them even after completing the game. Combat encounters are spread a little too far out on some levels, with the platforming being total ass (the jump is like a 95% vertical hop), making navigating feel artificially difficult at times.

Technically though? It's flawless outside of not having an in-game calibrator for more input lag-ridden TVs. A seriously crazy game to shadow drop, and looking at the talent behind it, this was never going to be bad. I'm hoping the success here inspires some more innovation in the genre down the line, because this is an achievement of genre mash that surprisingly hasn't really been done in this way to this degree before.