I don't know. This is more of the same from the first game, which I enjoyed very much, so I should love this game as well, right? Well, I didn't.

The humour this time around felt forced and not funny, and when they include the meta-aspect (the game knowing it is a game) they loose me, and the homages to other games (SF2 and Limbo among other) just takes away from some of the magic from a truly uniqe game series.

The fighting combos is still not properly baked into the gameplay. I could not find any situation where I was able to chain the fighthing combos you learn at Flamehead's gym. And when there's like 15-27 enemies in som instances on screen I even have problem seeing where I'm at, resulting in hack and slash button mashing and hoping for the best.

The upgrade system is alright but again, the fighting moves you learn = waste of time and money.

Almost finished with the game (82%) but couldn't be bothered when I didn'd find it fun at all.

17th march 24: Note to self: Watched the first hour and a half of gameplay on yt, a tour de force in exposition dumping with a boring as hell HQ and uninteresting lore dumping in first real mission. And it looks enemy spamming as hell as well. Stay away.

Older:
Why did you have to go for the woke shitty intro thing?
If you want to do the female girl boss thing: look to Darksiders 3. Fury just IS badass, she has no need to tell the world because her actions so clearly shows it.
And the art of "show, dont tell" seems to be lost in the world where scoring woke points is of priority. And it keeps going all the way into the HQ with angry stoic female characters and fumbling donuts aka "men".

Interesting concept which I would like to see more games implement. It is a detective/puzzle murder mystery where you actually have to spy on persons and use your deductive skill to figure out the solution.
It's not without weaknesses though, which lessens the enjoyment: collecting 52 card randomly places throughout is not fun; the isometric style is okay but the main character is sooo slow; some of the abilities comes too late and "fast travel" here is the most useless skill I've come across. The map is cool, but I wish the floors were layered on top of each other, not spread out beside each other.

A game I wish I liked more than I did, but still: if there ever is to be a sequel or spiritual successor I will check it out.

I've been looking for a game that game me a similar vibe and gameplay as Dead Cells, and that's just what I got from Children of Morta. I've never seen it recommended in any list like "if you like Dead Cells, you'll like CoM" and just downloaded the demo by random chance. Which was so good I bought the full game. It's a surprisingly well-crafted game where all the elements come together quite naturally. It's quite focused on the story, but it's never intrusive or info dumping you and it adds to the gameplay and goal of the game. Something I think a lot of games don't get quite right.
Maybe I should've added a half star on the rating, we'll see, but it's definitely better than the average rating indicates.

The lore, style and tone was right up my alley, but gameplay wise it got old quite quick. Upon entering the third "world" the game just couldn't keep my interest as it was getting predictable by then. And the loading times between each stage (not just the worlds) became annoying very fast. Spending 12-15 sec before entering the shop, then spend 10 sec in the shop and another 12-15 sec before entering next stage is a pretty secure way of loosing momentum and "urgency" within the game itself as well.

A game I wanted to enjoy but did not.

A cool game with a stylish and fitting look for it's story. Gameplay wise it changes between exploration and sidescrolling combat and separates between the two very clearly. Some of the visual clues in the exploration are too vague and the combat could've needed some tuning, but works fine otherwise. The VR side companion is a tad too "goofy anime character" for my taste and does not fit the tone of the game at all.

I got fed up at the final boss. I kept dying at the exact same spot in the "fight", even though I had maxed out all the abilities and made sure to save the special ability to the third stage of the fight. Probably because I'm not using one of the gameplay mechanics correct (obviously), but then again the game doesn't prepare you for this fight, because there's nothing earlier in the game with a similar type of fight teaching you.

Nioh definitely has it's own rhythm and pacing when it comes to the combat, and to me it only started to make sense towards the end. But then it became quite enjoyable. The amount of loot is over the top and I wish I learned sooner to focus on a specific armour set piece and focusing on improving that one, rather than using a piece of this and a piece of that. The menu system and shop has room for improvements.

The game is mission based, which suited me just fine. And all the written lore and video cut scenes made it easy to get back into the game after a few months away from it.

Some of the bosses are more a test of your ability to stagger your frustration than your skills. At least to me, not being at an appropriate level meant death over and over again.
But after finishing the story line I want more and are looking forward to Nioh 2.

Afterimage is a huge and ambitous game with a beautiful artwork, but it outstays it's welcome by being too massive and too clever for it's own good. In some parts the game just becomes too obtuse to figure out where I'm supposed to go next or how to proceed to evolve some of the quest lines, but storywise the game just rams exposition dialogue down your throat ad nauseum. And there's no way I would've figured out some of the secrets in the game without having to look them up.

The gameplay is solid, the controls are precise and the game world is fun to explore. But the story is pretty uninteresting and all the characters function more like exposition tools and quest devices than being real inhabitants of this place.

Other con's: the menus are a mess, the skill tree is confusing and a hassle to manoveur through, the vendors who sell/buy things are too far apart, having to buy potion to be able to fast travel to different location makes backtracking inefficient and a bore, getting rid of items one by one is a chore, no "sell all" option etc..