To all the smug little poindexters that recommend this boring ass series every time someone mentions SMT or some other dungeon crawler:

1. May the Universe itself conspire against you, strike you down, and rend your Soul asunder, such that your Body fades away with the sands of Time, and your Soul is confined to the holy Purgatory outside the Realm of existence, where the full weight of your new Nonexistence will be laid bare, now and forevermore. You will come to be intimate with the Event Horizon that stradles the edge of Infinity and Nothingness. Even the indomitable promise of Time will falter, and your very thoughts will abandon you. Peace will be nothing more than a forlong Dream from a time long past in the godless place; there will be no forgiveness, no solace. No, only the oppressive horror of Oblivion will remain.

2. Your jordans are fake

In a world where western AAA developers are so utterly risk-averse that they'd make Courage the Cowardly Dog look like The 300, and many indie developers are still infatuated with roguelikes, Soulslikes, and "Quirky Earthbound-Inspired RPG Maker Games About Mental Health" , I have nothing but respect for Steel Assault's devotion to the pure arcade style of gaming.

Of course, I'm being quite hyperbolic (and a bit unfair) here, but I really am glad a title like this exists. Steel Assault is a short, but very sweet run-and-gun with heavy arcade influence, reminiscent of Contra or Metal Slug. The controls are tight, the level and enemy design is both varied and spectacular, and boss fights are equally well-crafted. The game is satisfyingly hard (especially on Expert and Arcade), and never unfair. The spritework is a beautiful sight to behold, and the music is downright amazing, evoking strong Thunder Force vibes.

I'm not without a few grievances with the game, though. My main problem is that the zip-line mechanic felt really underutilized. I was expecting it's uses and applications to evolve more during the game (and it kinda did a few times, like during the conveyor belt part of Stage 3), but it just never wowed me. Similarly, I expected the subweapon mechanic to be a lot more fleshed out. It seems kinda weird to have an entire subweapon bar (that you can refill with melee attacks) only for a single weapon that you rarely get. Personally, I also think that the gap between Normal and Expert mode's difficulty is faaaar too big. Expert mode doubles damage received, increases enemy health, decreases health restoration, AND removes all checkpoints in levels, meaning that you have to restart the stage every time you die. In a game with five different difficulty levels, they really should have been able to smooth it out.

Despite the hiccups, Steel Assault, at its core, is still a great, tightly-designed, and focused game. I can wholeheartedly recommend it, and I do hope that the developers continue to make games and refine their work.

And make sure to completely disregard anyone accusing the game of being too short; that very sentiment of "length = price" has done irreparable damage to the state of gaming. This is very clearly and unabashedly an arcade-style game, and I can guarantee that any issues with length would be solved by playing Expert and Arcade mode.

But I digress; just play Steel Assault.

Metroid Dread is essentially an evolution of Metroid Fusion, in that it's a far more linear experience than, say Super Metroid. Instead focusing on tremendous freedom for open-ended exploration, Dread excels in crafting a smooth, satisfying gameplay experience; the best the series has ever seen. The level design, enemy behavior, and your combat and movement abilities are all utilized to this end. It feels amazing. Similarly, the bosses are a joy to fight, thanks to the combination of interesting attack patterns (and high damage to back it up) and beautiful visual spectacle (particularly in the grab sequences after a parry).

The EMMI encounters were neat too, though I really wish they were more varied. They were pretty cool at first, but eventually I felt like I was just going through the motions with them before I'd get the Omega Omega Blaster/Stream. The chase sequence with the sixth one was great, however.

While I do have some gripes with this game (the music isn't very memorable, and I wish the reoccurring Chozo soldier/robot bosses got more patterns), as far as I'm concerned, the positives far outweigh the negatives. In other words, this is the best game in the 2D Metroid series.

Also, they made Samus so fucking cool in this game, what the fuck?

I've been waiting on this game for quite a while. A Mega Man X fangame with Touhou characters? Sounded right up my alley. Honestly, it's quite good!

First off, don't let the name of the game fool you. Outside of the "8 stages in any order, followed by 4 castle stages" progression structure and how the game generally plays, many of the main features of the X series aren't really present here. There's only like, three different weapons here: your normal shot and its charged variants, a bomb that, when upgraded, clears bullets around you, and a barrier that takes a few hits for you and costs three bombs. No special weapons from bosses or anything. There aren't as many upgrades to explore for and collect, either. In addition to the one dropped by the boss, every stage has one hidden P item, which are used to buy upgrades in the shop. It's pretty basic; besides the obligatory health and charge time upgrades, you also have upgrades that make your bomb more useful, allow you to aim your shots, strengthen you when you're low on HP, etc. It's neat stuff, but nothing very exciting.

Although the hallmarks of the X series may come off as half-baked in this game, I didn't really mind too much; I was never THAT big on that stuff. The level and boss design is much more important to me. And I'd say that Udongein X delivers on that front. Each and every level is well-crafted, and maintains a consistent level of quality. Unlike most of the X games, there was never really a point where I was like "wow, I'm not having fun at all!" Even when I was running into the same set of spikes over and over, I could still confidently say that I was enjoying myself. A few of them even have some really fun gimmicks. Seija's stage flipping feature was nice, and Doremy's hori shmup gimmick is so much better than literally every non-traditional stage in the X series, by virtue of actually being an enjoyable experience. I do have one problem with the stages though. The enemy variety. It's not a problem in EVERY stage, to be fair, but I did get a little tired of seeing the same two fairies and kedamas everywhere.

Speaking of enemies, the bosses are a joy to fight. They were a lot closer to Mega Man Zero fights instead of X boss fights, where you have to put a little effort into learning the boss patterns to succeed. The lack of weaknesses or subtanks further prevents any brute-forcing. A few of them can feel just a TAD bit bullshit, like Seija and the final boss' dash attack (yeah, fuck that one move in particular).

All things considered, it's a pretty good game. I keep flip-flopping between 7 and 8 out of ten because while it feels a little barebones and unpolished, the core design is very solid. Don't tell anyone I said this, but it mogs the FUCK out of like, half the X series. I'd definitely recommend it if you're a fan of action platformers and Touhou. Looking forward to Konpaku Zero!