TheYeti
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1123 Reviews liked by TheYeti
Kentucky Route Zero
2013
This game is unbearable and boring as F. Its pretty interesting how I can give it 1 star while people think this is the best thing ever. I don't want to waste anytime writing anymore or waste any brain cells on this game. I gave it a fair shot and made it half way through act 3 and I just could not take it anymore. The music was nice as is the animation....there is just a bunch of random chat and text that scrolls by. I had 0 investment in it... i don't know what the point of this game is... is it a commentary on society? If so do i really need a game to tell me that our medical insurance is a rip off? I tried to push through because its an easy trophy... however i cannot take 8-10 hours of this just for an easy plat.
If you like reading a lot of random things (kind of like in some animes random shit just happens, and people say and do random things, that don't connect and you just accept it....) play this game. If you like traditional story telling... stay far away. In contrast i loved Limbo, little nightmares, etc.... i was expecting more of the same here based on what i read going in....
If you like reading a lot of random things (kind of like in some animes random shit just happens, and people say and do random things, that don't connect and you just accept it....) play this game. If you like traditional story telling... stay far away. In contrast i loved Limbo, little nightmares, etc.... i was expecting more of the same here based on what i read going in....
Immortals of Aveum
2023
Trading guns for magic, you play as one of the special few who can wield all three colours of the arcane. You are armed with Blue (a Rifle), Red (a Shotgun), and Green (a Machine Gun) to mow down your foes. The writing is fun, and the voice acting is good. Although, you might struggle to find a character you actually like, as they are all different shades of asshole. The game claims you can build your character to fit your playstyle, focusing on powering up one colour or evenly spreading your points across all three. However, it then throws you encounters that require specific colours to defeat enemies, spitting in the face of those claims. Sometimes, a game can simply be "good". They don't have to all be masterpieces.
Pepper Grinder
2024
Ah. That’s more like it.
As the one person I know who likes Donkey Kong Country, Drill Dozer, and that one burrowing escape sequence from Ori and the Will of the Wisps, I knew Pepper Grinder was going to be right up my alley. What impressed me though, was just how precisely the game melded its influences into something that felt simultaneously fresh yet familiar. The level design is classic obstacle escalation (introduce a concept, scale it up, throw in a twist, and then run the player through a final exam into their victory lap) with DKC inspired secrets with skull coin collectibles for unlocking secret levels. Many of the usual formula beats are present as well to force execution tests, from the usual moving parts in the forms of cannons, rope swings, and grappling points, to constantly present sources of danger like the freezing ocean or the temporary dirt patches created from cooling lava. What sets Pepper Grinder apart however, is that the terrain itself is the main obstacle. It feels like such a natural pairing to seamlessly mesh environmental navigation with the course’s very foundation, and the best moments of the game lean into funneling the player through various layers of shifting and isolated terrain while tearing through all that may stand in their way.
That said, I think to really understand the nuances of Pepper Grinder, one has to readily commit to its time attack mode. I could have been sold on the game-feel alone as an amalgam of Donkey Kong Country’s momentum physics and Drill Dozer’s force feedback, but playing under circumstances that force you to squeeze every possible second out of the timer gives the player a better appreciation of its movement mechanics. Pepper is not very fast on foot, nor can she naturally jump very far. Therefore, you’d think that most speed comes from tunneling through terrain, but it’s not quite that either. Rather, the player has to maintain momentum through the interplay of drilling and jumping by exiting terrain via the drill run (boosting right as you’re about to leave a patch of dirt), which commits the player to the projected arc leaving the terrain but with the reward of significantly more speed. The result is some of the weightiest and most satisfying movement I have ever experienced in any platformer. I was constantly figuring out new ways to save seconds by timing by boosts both within terrain and right before exiting terrain (since you can’t just spam boost and using it too early can lock you out from getting the necessary boost jump out of terrain), skipping certain obstacles entirely with well-placed drill runs, and figuring out how to manage my health to bypass unfavorable cycles and damage boost past mines and thorns. Some of those gold time attack medals were tight ordeals, but I absolutely savored every moment of the grind.
Bosses as a whole are a significant improvement from the usual quality of those in Donkey Kong Country. You’re not safe just waiting above ground, and burrowing to dodge attacks forces you to at least dash-dance underground since drilling means you can’t stay in one place. As a result, the player is constantly on the move, and you’re incentivized to do so anyways given that most of the bosses require multiple hits to defeat and aren’t the usual “invincible until they’re done attacking” crop from DKC. The biggest complaint I can levy here is that boss hit/hurtboxes can feel imprecise; I’ve heard that many players have had difficulty figuring out how to correctly drill into the beetle boss’s underbelly, and while I had no issues there, I did die a few times from the skeleton king’s heel hitbox where there was no visible attack in its vicinity. Still, I much prefer these boss fights over many of its peers, and figuring out when and how to best aim drill runs from the ground to speedrun bosses was just as much of a pleasure as speedrunning the courses themselves.
There are a few questionable design choices that could be touched upon here. Firstly, there’s a shop system present where you can purchase optional stickers from a gacha machine as well as temporary health boosts. The former is mostly forgivable given that they don’t impact the gameplay otherwise and can be cleared in about three minutes of purchasing and opening capsules. That said, I feel as if the latter could be removed entirely given that I never felt pressured to purchase insurance for courses and bosses, especially because I was often taking hits anyways to skip past obstacles and because you’re not going to regain the extra health capacity in-level once it’s gone. Secondly, bosses in time-attack mode force you to watch their opening unskippable cutscenes before getting to the action, and this gets extremely irritating when you’re constantly restarting fights to get better times. Finally, Pepper Grinder has a few gimmick areas in the forms of a couple of robot platforming segments, two snowmobile sections where you just hold forward on the control stick, and a couple of run-and-gun levels with little drilling involved. I can look past most of these given that they don’t take up much time and that I enjoyed all the minecart levels from DKC as is, though I do wish that they spaced the gimmicks apart a bit more given that levels 4-3 and 4-4 both have significant run and gun segments sending each course off.
If I did have any lasting complaints, it would be that I just want more of this game. Most players will finish adventure mode in under four hours. That said, even despite a lack of polish here and there, I absolutely adore Pepper Grinder. At this time of writing, I’ve 100%ed the game and even gone back to a few time trials after snagging all the gold medals just to further polish my records. It’s often difficult for me to pin down what makes a game feel good to play, but in this case, I just know. Pepper Grinder feels like an adrenaline rush made just for me, and though its execution barriers and short length will likely make this a tough sell for many, it is undoubtably some of the most fun I have had with a game this year. If you’re curious or enjoy anything that I’ve discussed in this write-up, please give the demo a shot. They don’t make 2D platformers like this anymore, and Pepper Grinder’s existence leaves me wondering why when they absolutely killed it on their first try.
As the one person I know who likes Donkey Kong Country, Drill Dozer, and that one burrowing escape sequence from Ori and the Will of the Wisps, I knew Pepper Grinder was going to be right up my alley. What impressed me though, was just how precisely the game melded its influences into something that felt simultaneously fresh yet familiar. The level design is classic obstacle escalation (introduce a concept, scale it up, throw in a twist, and then run the player through a final exam into their victory lap) with DKC inspired secrets with skull coin collectibles for unlocking secret levels. Many of the usual formula beats are present as well to force execution tests, from the usual moving parts in the forms of cannons, rope swings, and grappling points, to constantly present sources of danger like the freezing ocean or the temporary dirt patches created from cooling lava. What sets Pepper Grinder apart however, is that the terrain itself is the main obstacle. It feels like such a natural pairing to seamlessly mesh environmental navigation with the course’s very foundation, and the best moments of the game lean into funneling the player through various layers of shifting and isolated terrain while tearing through all that may stand in their way.
That said, I think to really understand the nuances of Pepper Grinder, one has to readily commit to its time attack mode. I could have been sold on the game-feel alone as an amalgam of Donkey Kong Country’s momentum physics and Drill Dozer’s force feedback, but playing under circumstances that force you to squeeze every possible second out of the timer gives the player a better appreciation of its movement mechanics. Pepper is not very fast on foot, nor can she naturally jump very far. Therefore, you’d think that most speed comes from tunneling through terrain, but it’s not quite that either. Rather, the player has to maintain momentum through the interplay of drilling and jumping by exiting terrain via the drill run (boosting right as you’re about to leave a patch of dirt), which commits the player to the projected arc leaving the terrain but with the reward of significantly more speed. The result is some of the weightiest and most satisfying movement I have ever experienced in any platformer. I was constantly figuring out new ways to save seconds by timing by boosts both within terrain and right before exiting terrain (since you can’t just spam boost and using it too early can lock you out from getting the necessary boost jump out of terrain), skipping certain obstacles entirely with well-placed drill runs, and figuring out how to manage my health to bypass unfavorable cycles and damage boost past mines and thorns. Some of those gold time attack medals were tight ordeals, but I absolutely savored every moment of the grind.
Bosses as a whole are a significant improvement from the usual quality of those in Donkey Kong Country. You’re not safe just waiting above ground, and burrowing to dodge attacks forces you to at least dash-dance underground since drilling means you can’t stay in one place. As a result, the player is constantly on the move, and you’re incentivized to do so anyways given that most of the bosses require multiple hits to defeat and aren’t the usual “invincible until they’re done attacking” crop from DKC. The biggest complaint I can levy here is that boss hit/hurtboxes can feel imprecise; I’ve heard that many players have had difficulty figuring out how to correctly drill into the beetle boss’s underbelly, and while I had no issues there, I did die a few times from the skeleton king’s heel hitbox where there was no visible attack in its vicinity. Still, I much prefer these boss fights over many of its peers, and figuring out when and how to best aim drill runs from the ground to speedrun bosses was just as much of a pleasure as speedrunning the courses themselves.
There are a few questionable design choices that could be touched upon here. Firstly, there’s a shop system present where you can purchase optional stickers from a gacha machine as well as temporary health boosts. The former is mostly forgivable given that they don’t impact the gameplay otherwise and can be cleared in about three minutes of purchasing and opening capsules. That said, I feel as if the latter could be removed entirely given that I never felt pressured to purchase insurance for courses and bosses, especially because I was often taking hits anyways to skip past obstacles and because you’re not going to regain the extra health capacity in-level once it’s gone. Secondly, bosses in time-attack mode force you to watch their opening unskippable cutscenes before getting to the action, and this gets extremely irritating when you’re constantly restarting fights to get better times. Finally, Pepper Grinder has a few gimmick areas in the forms of a couple of robot platforming segments, two snowmobile sections where you just hold forward on the control stick, and a couple of run-and-gun levels with little drilling involved. I can look past most of these given that they don’t take up much time and that I enjoyed all the minecart levels from DKC as is, though I do wish that they spaced the gimmicks apart a bit more given that levels 4-3 and 4-4 both have significant run and gun segments sending each course off.
If I did have any lasting complaints, it would be that I just want more of this game. Most players will finish adventure mode in under four hours. That said, even despite a lack of polish here and there, I absolutely adore Pepper Grinder. At this time of writing, I’ve 100%ed the game and even gone back to a few time trials after snagging all the gold medals just to further polish my records. It’s often difficult for me to pin down what makes a game feel good to play, but in this case, I just know. Pepper Grinder feels like an adrenaline rush made just for me, and though its execution barriers and short length will likely make this a tough sell for many, it is undoubtably some of the most fun I have had with a game this year. If you’re curious or enjoy anything that I’ve discussed in this write-up, please give the demo a shot. They don’t make 2D platformers like this anymore, and Pepper Grinder’s existence leaves me wondering why when they absolutely killed it on their first try.
A Story About My Uncle combines fun, enjoyable gameplay with a touching story that gave me goosebumps. At the same time, it (the game) does not get boring, as it goes away in 3-4 hours. A very good game for a couple of evenings
Yakuza 5 Remastered
2019
Yakuza 5 is an anthology series.
Episode 1 - Kazuma Kiryu
“Suicidal Pedestrian Kart”
————————————————
The citizens of Nagasugai are desperate to die! It is your job to thwart the morbid plans of the populace while lawfully delivering your passengers!
Episode 2 - Taiga Saejima
“Cabela’s Dangerous Hunts: Sapporo Edition feat. Weapon Distribution Santa”
————————————————
Eat tripe, learn what a Marten is, and giggle every time Saejima says “Baba-chan”!
Episode 3 - Haruka Sawamura
“Harukatsune Miku”
————————————————
Sing and dance as you learn to stand up for yourself, but also repeat things back to authority figures verbatim and follow countless instructions without any error or deviation of any kind!
Episode 4 - Shun Akiyama
“Inept Businessman Simulator: Osaka Expansion”
————————————————
Spend very little time establishing a new office because there’s so much DANCING and KICKING to do!
Episode 5 - Tatsuo Shinada
“Brothel Baseball Chocobo Racer”
————————————————
Whack balls, race chickens, and write smut to get out of CRIPPLING DEBT!
Episode 6 - All
"Yakuzavengers: Homecoming"
————————————————
Probably the most baffling, nonsensical climax of any Yakuza game so far, but that doesn't stop it from being hype!
Episode 1 - Kazuma Kiryu
“Suicidal Pedestrian Kart”
————————————————
The citizens of Nagasugai are desperate to die! It is your job to thwart the morbid plans of the populace while lawfully delivering your passengers!
Episode 2 - Taiga Saejima
“Cabela’s Dangerous Hunts: Sapporo Edition feat. Weapon Distribution Santa”
————————————————
Eat tripe, learn what a Marten is, and giggle every time Saejima says “Baba-chan”!
Episode 3 - Haruka Sawamura
“Harukatsune Miku”
————————————————
Sing and dance as you learn to stand up for yourself, but also repeat things back to authority figures verbatim and follow countless instructions without any error or deviation of any kind!
Episode 4 - Shun Akiyama
“Inept Businessman Simulator: Osaka Expansion”
————————————————
Spend very little time establishing a new office because there’s so much DANCING and KICKING to do!
Episode 5 - Tatsuo Shinada
“Brothel Baseball Chocobo Racer”
————————————————
Whack balls, race chickens, and write smut to get out of CRIPPLING DEBT!
Episode 6 - All
"Yakuzavengers: Homecoming"
————————————————
Probably the most baffling, nonsensical climax of any Yakuza game so far, but that doesn't stop it from being hype!
A graphical showcase for sure but after a while just makes me feel like I'm playing Far Cry again. In the way that enemies are pretty easy, content variety is sparse, and it becomes a slug to do anything but the main missions.
Fun enough for co-op though.
Fun enough for co-op though.
Breakout
1976
My past self: ''Y'know, I think it's time I give Breakout a shot! It'll take me what, 10, 20 minutes to get something out of it? I'm sure I'll be done in a while...
My present self (2 hours later): ''Y'know, I used to be fucking stupid when I was younger!''
And you mean to tell me that founding Apple is Steve Wozniak's highest achievement? But... this shit is better than the MacBook!
Despite so many years of playing Breakout in different versions and in scattered moments, it never truly hit me till now how much fun of a game it actually is. You could have fun by yourself in Pong, it’s just like bashing your head against a wall: even if you end up enjoying, it’s not gonna last very long before something caves in.
Breakout answers to that idea by making that wall fun to bash against! It’s a back and forth against yourself that feels rewarding beyond the mere act of seeing the number score getting higher; dismantling that multicolored wall piece by piece is as simple as it is addicting, which it’s a lot.
Even tho Breakout’s pitch is pretty much ‘’Pong but singleplayer focused’’, I also like to think of it a sort of reinterpretation of pinball machines into videogame territory. A really simplistic one to be sure, but that lifts of elements from it that fit —like the strike system, with a certain number of balls given to you per coin to get a high score—, but also shifts away from the ‘’choose your own path/route’’ that the best machines make you feel and instead puts your objective in front of you. Am I overthinking things? Most likely! But it’s hard to not let your mind ponder over the little things as you break away and have a fun little time.
It’s one of those games that just works… except when it doesn’t. The rather clunky hit detection that was already present in Pong hasn’t gonna go anywhere, I would like to say that it’s just a matter that the paddle’s hitbox as the paddle itself, but it seems to depend more from where the ball is coming, sometimes making contact is enough, others you need to line up perfectly, and it can feel a little discouraging when it messes you up when you are having a good run. It does fix the speed of the ball on spawn tho, it makes it pretty much impossible to miss in your first throw and eases thing into getting as fast as hell, so ya win some ya keep some, I guess…
Breakout is still very much a win, and it doesn’t need dragons on the cover art to show that, it’s another piece of the massive domino that was the arcade industry of the 70’s, piece that would lead to amazing games like Space Invaders, but also a great piece on its own.
My present self (2 hours later): ''Y'know, I used to be fucking stupid when I was younger!''
And you mean to tell me that founding Apple is Steve Wozniak's highest achievement? But... this shit is better than the MacBook!
Despite so many years of playing Breakout in different versions and in scattered moments, it never truly hit me till now how much fun of a game it actually is. You could have fun by yourself in Pong, it’s just like bashing your head against a wall: even if you end up enjoying, it’s not gonna last very long before something caves in.
Breakout answers to that idea by making that wall fun to bash against! It’s a back and forth against yourself that feels rewarding beyond the mere act of seeing the number score getting higher; dismantling that multicolored wall piece by piece is as simple as it is addicting, which it’s a lot.
Even tho Breakout’s pitch is pretty much ‘’Pong but singleplayer focused’’, I also like to think of it a sort of reinterpretation of pinball machines into videogame territory. A really simplistic one to be sure, but that lifts of elements from it that fit —like the strike system, with a certain number of balls given to you per coin to get a high score—, but also shifts away from the ‘’choose your own path/route’’ that the best machines make you feel and instead puts your objective in front of you. Am I overthinking things? Most likely! But it’s hard to not let your mind ponder over the little things as you break away and have a fun little time.
It’s one of those games that just works… except when it doesn’t. The rather clunky hit detection that was already present in Pong hasn’t gonna go anywhere, I would like to say that it’s just a matter that the paddle’s hitbox as the paddle itself, but it seems to depend more from where the ball is coming, sometimes making contact is enough, others you need to line up perfectly, and it can feel a little discouraging when it messes you up when you are having a good run. It does fix the speed of the ball on spawn tho, it makes it pretty much impossible to miss in your first throw and eases thing into getting as fast as hell, so ya win some ya keep some, I guess…
Breakout is still very much a win, and it doesn’t need dragons on the cover art to show that, it’s another piece of the massive domino that was the arcade industry of the 70’s, piece that would lead to amazing games like Space Invaders, but also a great piece on its own.
Trivia Time!
Contrary to what you may have heard, this is actually the best Donkey Kong game we've ever released. Why didn't you buy it? Koizumi-san was so SAD.
It should have been a hit! You all should have played it! We could have been 8 games deep in the Jungle Beat series by now! DK Bongos should have been littering tens of millions of basements across the globe just like sticky Wii Remotes and busted Joy-Con®! WE COULD HAVE ACHIEVED TRUE GREATNESS, BUT YOU LET KOIZUMI DOWN
Stay tuned for more Trivia Time segments in the near future!
Contrary to what you may have heard, this is actually the best Donkey Kong game we've ever released. Why didn't you buy it? Koizumi-san was so SAD.
It should have been a hit! You all should have played it! We could have been 8 games deep in the Jungle Beat series by now! DK Bongos should have been littering tens of millions of basements across the globe just like sticky Wii Remotes and busted Joy-Con®! WE COULD HAVE ACHIEVED TRUE GREATNESS, BUT YOU LET KOIZUMI DOWN
Stay tuned for more Trivia Time segments in the near future!
I picked this up because there seemed to be a consensus that this was the best Mario Party in ages, going back to basics after Mario Party 10 and Super Mario Party. I definitely agree that Superstars is better than having all players move around in a single car together, but to me, this doesn't feel like a Mario Party worth getting excited for. Having recently played each of these boards in their original titles via the NSO, I don't really see the appeal of Superstars, as it takes some of the simplest and least-engaging boards in the franchise, and eliminates their charming N64 aesthetic in favor of that standard "Generic Mario" visual style. The minigame collection is solid, but these boards really don't do it for me.
I've played this, Super Mario Party, and 1-7 with my kids over the past few years. This feels really weird to say, but... I feel like I need to get Mario Party 8. Maybe that was secretly the best one all along. At least it had interesting boards!
I've played this, Super Mario Party, and 1-7 with my kids over the past few years. This feels really weird to say, but... I feel like I need to get Mario Party 8. Maybe that was secretly the best one all along. At least it had interesting boards!
Xiao Xiao No. 4
2001
The inescapable grip that Xiao Xiao animations and games had on me in 2002 cannot be overstated
This was quite possibly the coolest thing I had ever seen
This was quite possibly the coolest thing I had ever seen
Gauntlet Legends
1998
Is this game really that great? Nope. But is this arcade co-op dungeon crawler a blast with friends? You better believe it.
Mario Party 2
1999
Gets put on a huge pedestal, but doesn't quite hold up. Wish they kept doing the costumes though.
Tchia
2023
Really great score, great idea, and the best movement system in any game ever!
Playing a Ubisoft style Open World thing without being bogged down by SYSTEMS is just really chill! I'm sure the story is great but I lost interest in it so quickly sadly.
Won't win any awards but it's just really... nice! (Also it's obvs got a great Dev story behind it)
Playing a Ubisoft style Open World thing without being bogged down by SYSTEMS is just really chill! I'm sure the story is great but I lost interest in it so quickly sadly.
Won't win any awards but it's just really... nice! (Also it's obvs got a great Dev story behind it)
I really miss this method of unlocking stuff in games.
Beat a Grand Prix on any speed, there's a dedicated unlock for that. There's even a special set of unlocks for when you beat everything in the game. I know this mentality might be dated, but the sense of progression you used to find in Mario Kart or Smash Bros. was truly special. Instead of a series of disconnected races, Double Dash!! felt like one big quest to fill out your roster with racers and karts.
The racing itself is obviously great, and the two-character karts made for some great co-op. The rear player's ability to slam into other karts was so beautifully chaotic and aggressive. More than anything, I miss the character-specific items which gave an additional element of customization to character selection. The modern Mario Kart roster might be considered too big to bring that feature back now, but you could just double-up on some items, similar to how Toad and Toadette both had the Golden Mushroom.
Battle Mode is fine, not as bad as it was in MK8, but not as tense as MK64. Worth playing for a bit, and introduced some fun new modes.
Double Dash!! is perfectly emblematic of mid-2000s Nintendo, a time period when they couldn't release a new game in an existing franchise without shaking it up somehow, and I wish they would get back to that.
Beat a Grand Prix on any speed, there's a dedicated unlock for that. There's even a special set of unlocks for when you beat everything in the game. I know this mentality might be dated, but the sense of progression you used to find in Mario Kart or Smash Bros. was truly special. Instead of a series of disconnected races, Double Dash!! felt like one big quest to fill out your roster with racers and karts.
The racing itself is obviously great, and the two-character karts made for some great co-op. The rear player's ability to slam into other karts was so beautifully chaotic and aggressive. More than anything, I miss the character-specific items which gave an additional element of customization to character selection. The modern Mario Kart roster might be considered too big to bring that feature back now, but you could just double-up on some items, similar to how Toad and Toadette both had the Golden Mushroom.
Battle Mode is fine, not as bad as it was in MK8, but not as tense as MK64. Worth playing for a bit, and introduced some fun new modes.
Double Dash!! is perfectly emblematic of mid-2000s Nintendo, a time period when they couldn't release a new game in an existing franchise without shaking it up somehow, and I wish they would get back to that.
Twilight Princess is not the best Zelda game, but it's pretty close.
The game isn't as cohesive of an experience as most 3D Zeldas, but it has WITHOUT A DOUBT the best dungeons in the whole franchise. The Yeti mansion, Arbiter's Grounds, and City in the Sky outshine any 3-in-a-row batch of dungeons in any other Zelda title.
Midna's great. Wolf Link combat rules. Aiming with the Wiimote is smooth as silk.
This game is still a great time, but the HD port is the way you should play it.
The game isn't as cohesive of an experience as most 3D Zeldas, but it has WITHOUT A DOUBT the best dungeons in the whole franchise. The Yeti mansion, Arbiter's Grounds, and City in the Sky outshine any 3-in-a-row batch of dungeons in any other Zelda title.
Midna's great. Wolf Link combat rules. Aiming with the Wiimote is smooth as silk.
This game is still a great time, but the HD port is the way you should play it.