Not to sound like an epic gamer contrarian but Hollow Knight is a game I've never really understood the overwhelming hype for. It feels incredibly safe, lacking any originality whatsoever and desperately trying to appeal to the masses (which it obviously succeeded at). Most things it does pretty badly to fine with few things it's truly outstanding in.

Let me start off by explaining what I mean by saying Hollow Knight is <safe> and <desperately tries to appeal to the masses>. I think this is most obvious in its aesthetic, being minimalist scrimblo (bug)guys in a dark world. These things obviously work and have wide appeal. The easily ignorable lore-based story is also a victim of Hollow Knight's addiction to playing it safe, I really wish metroidvanias in general would get over lore-based storytelling, it's really boring. I could go on and on about how safe this game is from the world design, to the simplistic combat, to the movement upgrades being as bland as possible, but the point is that these things make game feel like it lacks any personality, putting that aside to be safe and easily marketable to the masses. It's basically The Minions but for adults. This isn't a problem depending on who you ask, but to me it really just made this feel super unremarkable. I love when games try new things being as creative as possible, this game is the opposite of that, some may even call it ehehhehehehehhehehehehhehe hollow.

Anyways on to the aspects of this game I actively dislike and think are bad. I think the easiest things to call bad are the bosses, while there are 2-3 great bosses the majority of them feel extremely underwhelming to outright bad. They just kinda feel like nothing and are very forgettable. Shoutout to the dream bosses for being especially nothing. The walk of shames back to bosses are also pretty bad but none of the bosses are really difficult enough for them to be that annoying, still worth nothing tho. The lack of good fast travel also makes some areas feel like an extreme slog to return to, very often having to retread the same ground you have before, the pretty w/e level design also doesn't help this at all. Most of the souls-inspired mechanics in general feel tacked on for no real purpose and only add tedium, I really wish games would stop taking inspiration from Souls when they have no clue what makes those games so good. I also wish there was more customization, the badges don't really give you much to play around with and aside from those there's practically nothing customizable which isn't great when this game is as long as it is.

That being said it's not like I despise this game, there's honestly a good bit of things I think Hollow Knight does absurdly well. Despite the boring setting the game visually looks fantastic and the sound design I'd easily place on top of the genre. This game also feels fantastic to control. I may think the bosses suck ass but the actual enemy design is really good, with plenty of enemy variety to make every area feel unique. It's absolutely worth noting that what this game does well it does VERY well. It just doesn't have much that really goes over the bar of <ok>.

tldr this is like basically the golf of video games when u rlly think abt it

For the uneducated, Bloodroot is a metroidvania with clear inspirations from games such as Symphony of the Night. It's also porn, porn which some might call <problematic> considering most of the cast consists of <petite bodied individuals>.

With that out of the way this game is fucking awesome, with most metroidvanias I run into the issue of simplistic combat which isn't done any favors by lackluster boss design across the majority of the genre. Even games I adore, such as Symphony of the Night, have pretty w/e to shit bosses with some exceptions. Bloodroot however has some of the best boss design I've seen in gaming period, pair this with the insane combat system, which takes notes from fighting games of all things featuring shit like cancels & assists. And then pair THAT with the movement, which after a certain point becomes so ridiculous that the only limiter becomes your skill. With all that this game becomes something that feels so unbelievably good to play it's ridiculous, very few games feel as good to play as this one. Even aside from the basic gameplay there's so much to love here, the map design is great, with my only complaint being the odd visuals and structures of some areas (I can't really fault it for this considering how low the budget obviously was). There's also an obscene amount of customization here, allowing you to have up to 9 weapons equipped at once alongside 3 <sub attacks> (basically fighting game assists). The accessories here are also all VERY good and useful, forcing you to decide what you equip based on how you want to play rather than equipping the few things that aren't useless (thank you fromsoft). Basically, there's a lot to love here, this game is VERY well put together.

Now to address the elephant in the room, which is the porn. The porn is great, I will not comment further otherwise the team at backloggd may get somewhat upset, a tad bit perturbed. But what I will say is I respect this game so hard for being what it is. I despise when games are made to appeal to the masses, things like Hollow Knight I find so safe and boring, gameplay and aesthetics alike. Yeah, the (singular?) dev could've made something with mass appeal that could've been incredibly successful given how good this game actually is. But that'd be lame. We have enough games that try to appeal to the masses, give me more games like this that appeal to only the most specific of niches.

Damn that was a game, time to explain why Tevi is my new favorite game of all time.

Just a warning I may ramble a little here.

Going over the most obvious thing first the bosses are phenomenal, I would say this was no surprise given how much I loved Rabi Ribi's bosses, but these broke ANY expectations I had going in. From start to end the bosses are constantly one-upping themselves, getting better and better culminating in some of the craziest final few bosses I have ever seen. Every boss is extremely distinct, all their movesets are completely original and at times will even take some VERY OBVIOUS inspiration from things such as Touhou and Devil May Cry. I love this, seeing Tevi pay homage to the games that very clearly inspired it is awesome, I adore seeing Tevi's own rendition of some iconic characters and attacks. These bosses are an absolute joy to fight, and this is one of those games where I will gladly bang my head against these bosses for hours on end not even realizing how much time has passed.

Alongside bosses being great Tevi also has ridiculously good balancing and gives a ton of customization through way of build variety and the multiple ways to customize how difficult the game actually is, even outside of the sheer number of difficulty options. The "ridiculously good balancing" part may seem controversial as it's very clear that some things are outright broken or have insane synergies but let me explain. A wise man once said, "You have control over the buttons you press" and that rings true here. Tevi's genius balancing stems from the sheer number of options you have that will vastly change how you play and how difficult the game is. Your base kit is balanced perfectly, everything you have feels about equal in strength with nothing feeling overtuned in the slightest. However, you can change this with optional equipment called "sigils" to make certain things stronger than others, and there are well over 200 of these equipables. You can obviously use a broken build with the sheer number of options you have, and spam consumable items while doing so, taking down endgame bosses with ease. But at the same time, you have the option to forgo those powerful options, making the game more difficult and drastically changing how you play at any point as you please. You can steamroll bosses, you can fight on an even playing field, or you could forgo all those customization options and fight with the odds completely stacked against you, I adore this type of game balancing. Very often I would fight a boss with a broken build, only to reset the fight near the end and switch to a build that would make the fight more difficult for fun. I always see people complaining about games with an obscene number of options having "balancing issues" because there's some obviously broken or weak options, even with Tevi, I've seen people complain about how bosses get easier as the game progresses, due to how powerful you can get. But I feel as if this is a misconception as to what good balancing actually is, outside of competitive games, good balancing isn't having all your options be at equal strength, good balancing is giving the player a wide variety of options to choose from with those options fluctuating in strength. Tevi masters this by having everything in your base kit be around equal strength, while having everything optional being at completely fluctuating strengths that you can change at any point. Using something less powerful will not detract from the actual gameplay and force you to avoid certain skills or mechanics, it will only affect how easy the game is, and that's why I believe Tevi's balancing is genius.

Exploration is also an absolute joy. I was a bit taken off guard at first due to how different this game's approach to exploration was compared to Rabi Ribi's. While Rabi Ribi is completely freeform with what you decide to do at any given point, Tevi takes a more linear route with bosses past chapter 1 being ordered and movement options essentially being unlocked with story progression. I may still prefer how Rabi Ribi handles its freeform progression, allowing you to get even endgame gear immediately, but that isn't to say I think Tevi is too far off with its linear progression. Tevi's linearity allows for the areas to be more catered to your current gear at any point, placing more emphasis on things that you may have just unlocked, leading to Tevi having far better areas in my opinion. Tevi's individual areas are a joy to explore and there were very few points where I wasn't having a complete blast exploring them, fuck mazes tho. Re-exploring areas to find hidden items and whatnot is also extremely fun with the only complaint I actually have being the odd number of places that look they should have items or resources.

Getting some last thoughts out of the way, aesthetically Tevi is fantastic. The soundtrack is incredible and goes way harder than it has ANY right to go and visually I adore how this game looks. Boss fights look incredible ESPECIALLY in comparison to Rabi Ribi. They have some of the coolest bullet patterns and attacks I have ever seen in a game period. I also love the artstyle of this game from the fantastic pixel art to the equally as good portraits to some of the best CGs I have ever seen, the quality here is unreal and they clearly were trying to go above and beyond in this regard. I also had fun with the story, while it's nothing too crazy and the main plot is pretty basic the characters are extremely fun, and dialogue is fantastic the whole way through. I especially love the main trio & the father/daughter dynamic between Tevi & her dad, it's really cute. I have also seen people already complaining about how "horny" or "anime" this game is and to that I say to refer to my Rabi Ribi review and read through the comments bc they're pretty funny (https://www.backloggd.com/u/AiriBan/review/953999/), for a tldr y'all complaining are pussies and only have yourselves to blame, fuck you.

I prolly missed something while writing this review but oh wellsies

TLDR this game is crazy fucking good and broke any expectations I had before it released. I love Tevi.