Status: Completed 100%
Date: 04.14.2021 / Play Time: 105 hours

The Rogue-lite genre perfected.

I know “perfect” is a pretty bold word to use when describing a game, but Hades gets pretty close to it. Don’t get me wrong, it has some stuff in it that I would absolutely change, but I truly think Supergiant Games have absolutely perfected the Rogue-lite formula with Hades.

I think one of the trickiest things in Rogue-likes/-lites is making your runs feel worthwhile - making loss not feel like an enormous setback, because in many Rogue games, it is. The story of Hades is built around your repeated runs in such a way that makes it feel like every single run builds on the story, even when you die. Win or lose, some aspect of the story moves forward. Yes, you do need to successfully escape a few times to roll credits. Beyond that, however, most progression with upgrades, characters, side-quests, etc can happen regardless of whether you make it out or not… provided RNG is on your side and you happen to trigger a conversation or find a boon needed for a quest.

Which leads me to my only complaint about the game - randomness. RNG playing into which boons you find in a run is fine - it forces you to adapt and make the best of what you’re given. However, I don’t like RNG when progression is locked behind it because you can’t find a specific boon or you can’t get a conversation with a certain character to trigger. I spent countless hours looking for a very specific boon to finish my last side quest. That said, even during that frustrating hunt, I didn’t stop playing because the core gameplay is a dang blast.

I also need to give a huge shout-out for how well Hades includes LGBTQ themes in extremely normal ways that are unfortunately not found very often in video games.

The cast of characters in this game is phenomenal. One of my favorite ensembles in a while. I was eager to continue doing runs not only because the gameplay was fun, but I wanted to keep seeing everything the characters had to say. And after 105 hours across a total of 96 escape attempts (73 of which were successful), I was still hearing new dialogue when I finally finished the game.

I could speak at length about how much fun I had thinking of cool builds and trying to create them, the wonderful cast of characters, or the excellent hook of collecting resources to upgrade your gear or hub. But honestly this review is already getting a little long. Go play Hades.

+ Perfect attempt/die/repeat gameplay loop with meaningful upgrades
+ Amazing cast of characters with great voice acting
+ Supergiant’s typical gorgeous visuals
+ Great soundtrack
+ Good LGBTQ representation
+ Good accessibility/difficulty options

- RNG impacting story progression

The only video game that holds the prestigious honor of making me fall asleep while playing it, not once, but three separate times.. I’ve nodded off in other games but I straight up fell asleep, controller in-hand, playing Kentucky Route Zero. I cannot stress enough how boring the actual act of playing this video game is. Which is a bummer because I liked the characters and thought the story had potential.

The game started off walking the line between intrigue and taking itself way too seriously before toppling head-first into pretension. I really just do not think this game is for me in any capacity. It feels more like an experimental art piece than anything else. I honestly think this could have made a trippy and very interesting HBO series.

+ Terrific art direction and generally just wonderful art style
+ Phenomenal sound design
+ Great original music. Seriously some of my favorite parts of the game.

- Holding a controller in your hand and hitting buttons to play this video game is incredibly boring
- So much reading. It’s all reading. First time that's ever bothered me.
- Is this a video game?

Status: Completed (Platinum Trophy)
Date: 01.18.2021 | Play Time: 8 hours

A fun, lighthearted collectathon that lets you be creative with an easy-to-use art template.
While most games structured like this will have you going around collecting a bunch of random stuff only to have the end reward be a costume or something, every collectible in Concrete Genie has a purpose.
I wanted to get every single page not because of the end reward, but because every page would unlock one more design in my art arsenal (artsenal). I’d find a wall I need to paint with some specific designs, so I’d take to the streets hunting for the pages so I could circle back and paint the wall only to see it come alive. It’s an incredibly satisfying collection loop.

What makes this process more fulfilling is that this dark, dingy, deserted fishing town completely comes to life with the colorful paintings you put everywhere. I would go out of my way to cover every single surface with art even if the game wasn’t asking me to do it. I wanted to see that place come alive, and the end result was very satisfying.

+ Extremely good collectible loop with great payoff
+ Great art system that lets you feel like you’re making cool art even if you aren’t an artist.
+ Fun, colorful visuals

- Surprise new mechanics at the end of the game felt a bit tacked on
- Motion controls are sometimes a bit finicky. But when you turn them off, it’s clear the game was designed with motion controls in mind.
- The bullies were occasionally annoying. Just leave me alone and let me paint.

Status: Completed (Platinum Trophy)
Date: 01/03/2021

You drop into a deserted space station and are tasked with figuring out what happened to the crew. The story of the crews' time on the space station is told via a series of augmented reality audio logs you can pause, rewind, and move around in. Unlike most games in the "walking sim" genre which have you mostly just moving from point to point to experience a scene from a single vantage point; in Tacoma, a single AR log needs to be watched several times from different spots in the log in order to get the full picture. It's a form of interactivity that pushes you to be more than just a spectator.

Fullbright has once again done a wonderful job telling a compelling story in a neat package that can be experienced in just a few hours. If you enjoyed Gone Home, I definitely recommend checking out Tacoma.

+ The AR logs are extremely cool. I'd love to see other games use a system like this.
+ Great story. I wanted to solve the mystery and figure out everything I could about the crew.
+ Good voice acting.
+ Easy Plat that encourages you to find fun little secrets

- Unfortunately had several full game crashes in which I lost a bit of progress.
- No music. Which I think is the point? Either way, I think it could've benefited from at least some ambient music to add to the atmosphere.

An incredibly chill game with a surprisingly not-chill back half.

OlliOlli World is all about the vibes and it truly has some of the best vibes. My play clock for this game ran several hours longer than it should have simply because I'd leave the game running while I did stuff around the house because the soundtrack is perfect.

The first 3 worlds were a relaxing trip. Playing a few levels were a perfect way to unwind. I found getting the highest score on every level to be a nice little accomplishment but not too challenging. I'd feel good if I did a whole level in one go. I'd do some challenges when I felt like it or when I really wanted the article of clothing to make my skater look cool. Some of the challenges were maybe a bit poorly worded as I would swear I did them but it didn't count. No matter. It's chill. No stress.

That all went right out the window when I got to World 4. You enjoying a nice relaxing game? No sir. Not anymore. Time to get sweaty palms. Hope you didn't want anymore cool clothing because the only way to get any bonuses now is to do an entire level in one combo.
My entire relationship with the game changed. Instead of being a chill way to relax, I just gripped the controller and barreled through the rest of the game.
Oh well. It was fun while it lasted.

+ Most chill video game soundtrack in years
+ Good vibes
+ Wonderful aesthetic
+ 60% chill

- Unclear challenges
- Way too much dialogue
- Massive difficulty spike
- 40% not chill

Gang it is OK to just not launch your game if it is this broken, unfinished, and just plain boring.

The cinematic trailer for this game really hooked me. The style looked good and a video game about roller derby sounded cool. But boy howdy does this game not deliver on literally anything that trailer promises.

Truly some of the worst character models I have seen in game in the last 3 console generations. The game barely functions. Errors galore and constant restarts required to play with friends. The challenges don't track and often just reset.

Even if all of the technical issues were fixed and the character models were improved, the game is just plain boring. It's a bad game. Do not play this.

- Horrendous character models
- Buggy and broken
- Feels unfinished
- Utterly boring

What if Myst had a spoken story and a voiceover that held your hand through every puzzle while commenting on every random object scattered throughout the world?

Most of what pushed me through Call of the Sea was an interesting mystery I wanted to get to the bottom of as well as some occasionally neat puzzles.

The puzzles are a mix of "wait what am I supposed to do with this?" and "OK I get it you don't need to walk me through every step of putting this round thing in the round hole". It would've been nice if they had threaded that needle a bit better.

While the mystery was interesting, the moment-to-moment writing was pretty bad. The protagonist is constantly commenting on every single thing she finds throughout the world and it truly feels like they ran out of things for her to say. Voice acting left a bit to be desired as well.

I enjoyed the game for the most part but the ending was pretty bad and left a bit of a sour taste in my mouth. Not sure if I'd recommend it. I think there are better games like this.

+ Intriguing mystery
+ Some interesting puzzles

- Bad moment to moment writing
- Too much narrating
- Iffy voice talent
- Occasionally confusing puzzles
- Terrible ending

Diverse cast of characters and great style wasted in an underwhelming destruction derby game.

I’ll start out positive and say that Destruction AllStars has one of the most diverse starting rosters I’ve seen in a multiplayer game in ages, and they should be praised for it. On top of that, the game has a fun art style that I think fits pretty well.

That said, all that is wasted on a game that is unfortunately not very good. It’s completely wild that they opted to charge $70 for this. Glad I got it free on PS+. It has 3 multiplayer modes (that are more or less the same - wreck cars) across 3 maps and a handful of single player “challenges” that take place on one of said multiplayer maps. That’s it. The game is also riddled with microtransactions which can be OK for some games, but to charge $70 for a game that is devoid of content and then charge money on top of that for cosmetics is gross.

And even if all of the above wasn’t true and it had great content, the gameplay itself is just fine. It’s nothing special, really. It’s just not very fun.

+ Great diverse cast of characters
+ Fun visual style

- Completely devoid of content
- Riddled with microtransactions
- Weirdly no music outside of unique character themes that only play on the character select screen
- Gameplay itself isn’t even very fun

An incredibly cool and inventive magic system in a pretty mediocre package.

The magic system in Magicka 2 is seriously rad. You have 8 different elements that can all be combined in various ways to create spells that you can cast as a projectile, in an area, on yourself, or on your weapon. Most of the fun was seeing how you can combine elements to create spells, and then how you can combine spells with another player to create explosions or other interesting effects. It almost reminds me of having to memorize fighting game combos so you can quickly execute your favorite spell when you’re unexpectedly swarmed by enemies.
But that need to memorize any cool spell combos you’ve discovered means, more often than not, you just end up casting the same couple of spells over and over again in a panic.

Friendly fire is always on, which makes 4 player online gameplay complete mayhem. Usually I don’t enjoy friendly fire, but it definitely made for some fun antics when playing this online with friends.

Unfortunately, the game itself ain’t great. When you boot up the game for the first time, the tutorial bombards you with paragraphs of text explaining how the complex magic system works. One of the worst game tutorials in memory. The voice acting and story is so bad that we would skip most cut scenes. While the magic system is cool, the game itself never challenges you to use your spells in interesting ways outside of one or two horrible boss fights and maybe three puzzles.

Honestly’, it’s really just not a very good game. It gets 3 stars because the magic system is cool and it was a fun multiplayer experience. Ultimately, killing your friends is more fun than actually playing the game.

+ Inventive magic system
+ Fun multiplayer.

- Very poorly made overall
- Terrible story and voice acting
- Awful tutorial

The speed at which Cherry can run left/right on the screen in contrast with how excruciatingly slow you move up and down the screen is a great analogy for the conflicting feelings of playing Street of Rage 4. At times, this game pops. The music is great, the visuals are fantastic, and getting some combos off is fun and quite satisfying. Other times, I’m reminded that I’m playing a game from the year 2020 that is a painfully accurate recreation of a 90s arcade game. And my question to that is - why?

Gaming has come far since 1991, why put so much work into making a new game that feels identical to an old game in every way? The fact that you can jump left and right but can’t jump up/down the screen kills me. Please give me some way of moving around faster. A dodge button? A roll button? Anything. Please. Also, for the life of me, I could never figure out where I was vertically on the screen with respect to enemies. A good 1/4 of my attempted attacks were either just above or just below an enemy.

At the end of this day, Streets of Rage 4 is nothing more than an old arcade beat-em-up with modern visuals and a rad soundtrack. If that’s your jam, great. Personally, if I’m playing a beat-em-up, I’d rather play a modern take on the genre like Castle Crashers or Scott Pilgrim.

+ Mostly fun soundtrack.
+ Incredibly good and clean visuals.

- It controls like an old arcade game and completely ignores 30 years of improvements in video games.
- Movement is so slow. Why does everyone casually walk everywhere?
- Gauging vertical screen position with respect to enemies was a struggle
- You’ve played this game already. It just didn’t look as pretty before.