like a dog having emptied its bowels on a newly purchased carpet, staring up in abject shame at its disappointed and solemnly sighing owners, i admit that i 100% completed this game. did i get anything out of it? no. Vampire Survivors is the kind of 'game' i can only recommend to other people with ADHD who just want some little thing to fuck around with while watching a movie or a show or a video online, but calling it a game is maybe a bit generous. it's more like a slot machine than a game, your actual control is minimal and it's largely built around big number going up and flashy thing happening. once you know how to win, you never lose again. there's not much to discover or interact with, so games really quickly become you waiting around for 20 minutes while nothing happens but numbers and gold go up. this might be the meanest thing i can say about a game, but its feedback loop and lack of meaningful interaction/gameplay made me think it would really fit a gacha. it's not interesting or engaging on its own, but as a background thing where you can jiggle around for a little bit, it kinda works. is that an honourable or valuable thing? no.

everyone's said it but yeah, this game's story is terrible. Bayonetta's never really had great stories, but they had a lot more energy and comedy and character than this one. Bayonetta herself is largely uninterested, unmotivated, and has no other characters popping around for her to play off of like in the past games - except for the shockingly dull 'multiverse' Bayonettas that all die instantly while Bayonetta stands there watching. idk why the multiverse thing is even in this one? it doesn't really take great advantage of it, you never really get fun interactions with multiple Bayos and you don't get any real standout characters or moments from those other worlds. in particular, the egypt world sucked total ass because the music in the start led me to think it was gonna be a wild west world and FUCK i want cowboy Bayonetta SO bad.

gameplay wise, this is (at times) the best the series has ever been. i think. pretty much all of the new weapons fucking rule, each being more complex than the majority of the past title's alt weapons and they're usually insanely cool. every single one could be the sole weapon your use throughout the game if you wanted, they're all on the level of Bayo's default guns and all have their own fun little quirks. each one of them has their own demon too and i cannot tell you how much i love that goddamn clock tower. the amount of options you have at any given time can be overwhelming almost, but i'm a sick freak and i live for this stuff. though, admittedly, i wasn't huge on summoning demons most of the time - it's just not as satisfying as throwing chainsaw-yoyos into someone's face and the moment i got the accessory that let demons move independently i never stopped using it. i kinda wished there were less gimmick sections just because i wanted to fuck around with the tools more. the gimmick sections (a Kamiya staple) are the most playable they've been so far, but they're also the most plentiful they've been and rob Bayonetta of those kickass moments where she would defiantly murder a giant fucking thing that talked shit. no one in this really talks shit, or talks at all, to Bayonetta. i think the gameplay is (for better and for worse) the most complex in the series so far and the amount of shit to play with as Bayonetta never left me bored.

there's also Viola, though. i actually love her, she's a horrible cringe fail girl who looks like she smells weird and writes fanfic and has opinions on sonic the hedgehog. her woefully sucky faux-punk attitude absolutely won me over but fuck does she have nothing to do in this game, which is a huge problem considering the ending. she mostly just chases Luka around the entire time, never even getting to interact with Bayo (or anyone, really) at all and jobbing to everything in cutscenes. she doesn't even get a cool moment during the final boss, which sincerely pissed me off. her gameplay revolves around a parry that activates witch time, which is cool on paper, but ultimately feels too stiff. witch time feels great because of the flow it adds to combat, the parry requires you to just stand still. i hope in the future (if these games have one) they give her Raiden's MGR parry instead. otherwise, i actually really like Viola and her moveset. kinda. her moveset never meaningfully evolves throughout the game and when Bayonetta has like 14 individual unique weapons and demons with full movesets, it feels weird to go to Viola and get one sword and one demon. a very cool sword and a very great demon, but still.

i've replayed enough of the game to wash the foul taste of its ending out of my mouth but when i got there initially i stared at the screen like that one panel in Tails Gets Trolled for like 20 minutes straight. unironic 'what were they THINKING?!?!" type moment. it's a shame that the story and writing is so bad this time around because this is one of the most video game ass video games that has come out in a long time. it's fun! it's Bayonetta, baby! but it's also on the switch and it absolutely should not be. poor Platinum have been hitched to 360-tier hardware for Bayo's entire series, this game pushes that shitty 'lil handheld to its limits but it really deserves better fidelity and quality than what was capable on this thing. its extra emphasis on scale and spectacle during regular gameplay only exacerbates this issue, with the visuals overall feeling drab and lacking in detail. that added scale also fucks with the camera far too often, found myself wishing enemies were just smaller. hopefully whenever the hell nintendo finally releases a successor console it'll be backwards compatible and there'll be a patch or something. the music, at least, is the best it's ever been. Viola doesn't need more than one battle theme because her song is the best shit ever and i want more. did notice some really bad sound-mixing and design during cutscenes tho, oddly flaccid. the cutscenes themselves are also extremely flaccid, with far less character moments and not even a fraction of the silly insane bullshit from the first title. still, despite my issues with its writing and aesthetic problems, this game rules and as someone who likes fun and cool games, i had a great time with this one.




oh, and Jeanne was in this game too.

almost impossible to recommend but easily one of my fav fighting games. small cast of characters but they all feel super idealized and fleshed out, they're all really fun and the combat is sick. love the meter mechanics. it isn't all out yet but the story mode is cute as hell and surprisingly ambitious with dungeons, towns, platforming-esque challenges and boss fights + fun writing. the music whoops ass and the art style, while obviously not everyone's thing, is really well executed. the designs are adorable and they animate pretty well. it sucks that people pass up on it because they're fucking cowards and can't handle it but that's whatever ig

i really don't know why Swery is so focused on telling stories about trans people, it's clearly coming from a place of goodwill so there is that, but thankfully this is EASILY the least bad one he's done. compared to Deadly Premonition 2 it is, uh, not Deadly Premonition 2. still, i find its story kinda surface-level. i'm sure it hits hard for cis people and babyqueers but as someone who transitioned like eight years ago it just doesn't have the nuance i'm looking for in this sort of story. it was really buggy, tho that was on the Switch version (which you should probably avoid if you care about performance as well.) The game itself is a decent, lots of pretty rudimentary puzzles involving you mutilating yourself and using your body parts as puzzle pieces. I like those gory aspects, it's like a transgender Mr. Bones, but i'm kinda iffy on how they relate to the narrative. coming out and finding yourself can be dangerous, it can be scary and freaky, but there's a triumphant joy to that shit which i don't think this game captures. that's defo a 'your mileage may vary' type thing but the game not being made by a trans person makes me really dislike it. too simple, too dour, too obvious. it gets close, it's an earnest shot, but it doesn't do it for me.

fucked up how they hid a decent game behind all of its worst levels. the opening part is a cramped slog with the most tiny and annoying enemies in the game, but it actually gets pretty fun afterwards provided you turn off the NPC escort mechanics. doesn't help that you start with the least satisfying weapons too, there's some really neat ones later on. i'll always defend the rocket jump shotgun in particular, you just know John Romero was tired of taking splash damage in deathmatch and made it that way just for himself. the story is dog ass, but it's also really funny and has Superfly Johnson, so really who can say if it's good or not? it isn't. but if it was widely considered good and successful, Romero would've never been humbled and we would be living in the timeline where both Romero and Carmack are evil.

feel like i got catfished. the gameplay loop here entirely kills this for me - i was under the impression Pacific Drive was gonna be a linear(ish) journey to the heart of the Stalker Zone but it ends up being an almost roguelike experience centred around going out on missions from your garage hubworld. it's more of a loot-centric game than a driving one, one way less lonely and more game-y than i hoped. i'm not into crafting survival games at all but the concept really intrigued me, just not enough to not groan at its opening garage tutorial segment or not feel like it was getting tedious after two missions. not bad, if you're into these sorts of games you'll defo find something valuable here, just really let me down personally.