(2024 DEMO MARKED REVIEW BIT, SUBJECT TO CHANGE WHEN FULL GAME DROPS)
Not just a celebration of old games but old internet culture in a really specific way
its about those violent cartoonish crude flash games its about that old deviantart its about that how to draw anime hair its about those oval eyes its about newgrounds its about XD its about STICK FIGHT its about y2k its about that compressed mic and windows movie maker
I value that a hundred percent, a thousand percent
because to me thats the crux of joy with the internet and a digital hum of the soul

Quantifying how i feel about this game in feel is hard because its definitely one of those games where youre rewarded immensely for getting really good at it but I don't know if its Too hard or Too challenging to get everything or if its because im not very good at video games despite loving them and having beat a lotta difficult ones

It could b a lil of both! But idk ive seen ppl dog the fuck out of the green demon and do all the objectives of this demo slice ez pz
So it could just be a me thing,
It's funny like I can also appreciate how this game has Mario 64 inspiration, with the Odyssey way of not booting you out every time you gain a single hitmarker medal(kinda like a star in this game)
But the first moment I was playin I was like "holy shit.. this is almost Adventure era Sonic momentum gaining" until that thought came to a crashing halt when it clicked "ohh yeah wait.. thats a weighty lil dude this is definitely more suppose to be like mario"
All those mario with gun joke things came and went for this babe, all of them

Saw this by complete chance and oh yeah its wayyyyyyy up my alley, I love you Garn47
I love your warbly pat of butter in a hot skillet movement, I love your pure cerebral cavity inducing little noises, the references I don't understand because im not really a Friday Night Funkin fan(atleast i think thats what some of these moments ingame were about?)
I love how conditionally the camera does diff shit
Car ofc is an icon
Conan is a pretty high roller too
I think the vibe and gamefeel of this is so perfect, and its most double edged sword thing is that even though I found all the main objective collectibles.. I know off of feeling alone that there's probably more, I know that there's some things thatre deeper in there
It's just also i have n o idea what im doing and I feel like looking up ways to see other things would detract from my aimless bumfuck screaming and wandering adventure with the game so I think that itll just be something I circle back around to like a nice hot cup of sweet hot chocolate :) delightfully specific in a way that kisses my heart

LOOOOOOOOONG overdue and been on my radar for several years, i Like rhythm thief
I think its impressive that they not only made somethin thats a mission to mission rhythm game with rhythm heaven-esque levels of variety(this shit will make you use EEEEVERYTHING with the 3ds except for maybe the 3d itself) but they actually told an animelike story about FRANCE of all places
The scenery and music are all chill, i dont really think big band and all that is what i prefer when it comes to a rhythm game
Sometimes it wasn't even rlly like I was bad at a level bc I was just bad at it but just because I aint rlly care for the song that was playing all that much and couldn't care about finding the right beat
The art style is also sweet and there's some bonus stuff i couldve unlocked but

im not gonna lie this game is hard as all shit and this is chronologically like the 3rd hard game ive beat back to back with other two games, i was TIRED
And I still delved for some of that extra story content to wrap up loose ends with the epilogue
Buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuut
Im good.

It was fun! And it sure did age well,
but when some songs were just not gelling with what i was doing or feeling... and with how DEEPLY punishing the game is with your fuckups in a level to the point where using items(you only get to equip one at a time regardless of how many gold coins you have stocked up)..
can ya rlly blame me for not being absolutely head over heels for this? its still good im not trying to end this on a sour note <3 it may be somebody's jam through and through
but for me? i just LIKED it
not rlly loved

Props to them for making an actual fun version of Napoleon(of sorts) too, that shit really curveballed me
this game also convinced me I could secretly be really good at violin

It's so damn good bitchhhh like come onnn
It's greattttt
I think this game's biggest faults(gettin it out of the way Mostly rn) are just that i don't really like the shooting all that much, sometimes its really fun and dodging things and being untouchable is fire... buuuuut other times you can really just be praying to every deity under the sun that shit works right

Sometimes its a pain. Specifically when it centers around it and I think thats why my favorite fights are the ones that just revolve around raw ass beating and not the ones where im dakkadakkadakka and pew pew pewing
Like i was fuckin with Touhou when I was a kid but? this is a 3d arena boss rush game, not a 2d vertical scrolling bullet hell
i mean i guess you oculd say there's bullet hell-esque....type shit in it IDK
the point is that this game's at its best with all that
Even letting you get health back for good parries and when you take the full HP bar of your opponent

The music also goes hard as all hell and the art style is cool asf too, I also went ahead and did that true ending and im not gonna spoil the contents of it in storyyyyyyyyyyyyy
but dick move for making that final phase of five.... FIVE MORE PHASES!! AND SHIT!! LIKE WHAT THE HELL
It got to the point where the final three bosses kind of clicked to me as last tests on your physical capabilities, your understanding of the movement system, and then the shooting system and I think...
I SEE THE VISION... I DO

But the cohesion of the moveset is already there! I wish that was leaned into more with more sword skills but the variety is interesting. I cant really play the other playable character's mode because im a broke ass bitch with no money obviouslyyyyyy
i mean i got this game when it was NEW in 2016
ts been sitting in my library ever since, EIGHT years ago
Only knew there was new content a few weeks ago when I started it and I think thats rlly funny because that new content technically isnt even NEW new since that dropped in 2022

But its a lovely game, I wish there was more boss rush games in the vein of doing shit like this
That repetition of getting better,
untouchable
unbreakable
Increasiing your reaction time and really bein put to the test at the best the game can offer you is real asf
And the story itself is great to me on basis of just it being one of those types of stories that lets You think about it
It doesn't spell everything out to you and I don't think we'll ever fully get it all spelled out for us on what everything meant to all of the characters, what everything meant to everybody in the world and how the projections of the different environments bled through
How each boss persisted even in a world being hollowed
It's beautiful in it's own right, if not a lil sad too
The inbetween sections when you can soak it all in i feel like are really important, because even though this game does feel arcadey in some aspects.. it still plays off of story and subtlety

Its just sometimes you get things like The Burst...
or The Line being kind of awkward..

also this game was never gonna let me live down even the thought of switching to easy mode, so i didnt! i played it all straight up on normal difficulty bc otherwise whos gonna believe me when i say i beat this shit if you couldnt even see my achievements? arguably a more evil trait of the game than anything in the last phase of the true boss

Saw this by complete chance and oh yeah its wayyyyyyy up my alley, I love you Garn47
I love your warbly pat of butter in a hot skillet movement, I love your pure cerebral cavity inducing little noises, the references I don't understand because im not really a Friday Night Funkin fan(atleast i think thats what some of these moments ingame were about?)
I love how conditionally the camera does diff shit
Car ofc is an icon
Conan is a pretty high roller too
I think the vibe and gamefeel of this is so perfect, and its most double edged sword thing is that even though I found all the main objective collectibles.. I know off of feeling alone that there's probably more, I know that there's some things thatre deeper in there
It's just also i have n o idea what im doing and I feel like looking up ways to see other things would detract from my aimless bumfuck screaming and wandering adventure with the game so I think that itll just be something I circle back around to like a nice hot cup of sweet hot chocolate :) delightfully specific in a way that kisses my heart