kuromoji
2024
(Pre-Eddy review)
Tekken 8 is the long awaited sequel to the 2015 title Tekken 7, and puts on an incredibly fresh coat of paint to a franchise that's been left to rust for almost a decade- welcoming players who are eager to learn their first fighting game as well as returning veterans who yearn to make their name known through tenacity and grit in the battlegrounds of Ranked. Tekken 8 makes the leap from Tekken 6 to Tekken 7 look like a complete joke. A truly impressive and unique gameplay experience that has never been seen before in any iteration of the game.
... so why did I give it three stars?
Tekken has always been notorious for being an incredibly complex and difficult game to learn, with most characters averaging at around 100+ moves for you to utilize. This challenge alone is enticing enough for people to play the games for decades on end, adapting and creating entirely new fighting styles that you typically wouldn't see in some 2D fighters. This alone is why Tekken 8 falls a little flat, as it promotes playstyles that no longer rely on timing and spacing, but instead how efficiently you can exploit a character moveset or some of the newly tuned mechanics, especially for something as simple as throwing.
Unrelenting aggression and pressure is the motto of the new generation, as we've seen in recent big name titles like Street Fighter 6, Mortal Kombat 1, and even Guilty Gear Strive. Every single one of these games has one bona fide thing in common- defense is no longer a priority in the new age of fighting games. Tekken 8 has systems in place that reward you more for attacking rather than blocking the attack, namely the new Heat system. Think of Heat as what V-Trigger was in Street Fighter V, except you're able to utilize it at any point during a round instead of near KO, which gives some characters like Jun or Devil Jin an easy set robbery simply because they pressed 2+4 before you did.
That being said, defensiveness is still entirely possible within the game, but compared to it's predecessors like Tekken 6 or TTT2, you're better off forcing your opponent to constantly guess 50/50s rather than learning a matchup in full. The developers are acutely aware of this change, seeing as how some characters have reworked moves to account for the aggressive nature of the game, like Kazuya for example, giving him access to his Mist Step (crouch dash) after inputting 3,1.
"But, hasn't Kazuya always been a 50/50 vortex monster?" Yes. Oh, absolutely yes. But even with his strong 50/50 tools, you were still able to contest players without utilizing a more gimmicky hellsweep-filled playstyle, and instead played around his strong punish game with moves like Demon God Fist, Abolishing Fist, or his famous EWGF (or PEWGF if you're skilled enough :3).
I think I rambled. Anyway, my point is that the game strays away from the more defensive and strategic gameplay that the franchise has been known for. While it does feel fresh and unique, it opens up a lot of more obnoxious, nearly braindead playstyles that get abused on the daily, which makes veteran Tekken fans having to adapt to game feel that contradicts the legacy the franchise has had set.
It's still a fun game though. Just wish the exploitative rushdown mentality was more of an outlier than the staple way to play.
Plus the story mode was a letdown in most areas. UNFORTUNATE! I'll update my review once Eddy comes out, there'll probably be a couple balance changes once that happens.
I don't like Asuka players.
Tekken 8 is the long awaited sequel to the 2015 title Tekken 7, and puts on an incredibly fresh coat of paint to a franchise that's been left to rust for almost a decade- welcoming players who are eager to learn their first fighting game as well as returning veterans who yearn to make their name known through tenacity and grit in the battlegrounds of Ranked. Tekken 8 makes the leap from Tekken 6 to Tekken 7 look like a complete joke. A truly impressive and unique gameplay experience that has never been seen before in any iteration of the game.
... so why did I give it three stars?
Tekken has always been notorious for being an incredibly complex and difficult game to learn, with most characters averaging at around 100+ moves for you to utilize. This challenge alone is enticing enough for people to play the games for decades on end, adapting and creating entirely new fighting styles that you typically wouldn't see in some 2D fighters. This alone is why Tekken 8 falls a little flat, as it promotes playstyles that no longer rely on timing and spacing, but instead how efficiently you can exploit a character moveset or some of the newly tuned mechanics, especially for something as simple as throwing.
Unrelenting aggression and pressure is the motto of the new generation, as we've seen in recent big name titles like Street Fighter 6, Mortal Kombat 1, and even Guilty Gear Strive. Every single one of these games has one bona fide thing in common- defense is no longer a priority in the new age of fighting games. Tekken 8 has systems in place that reward you more for attacking rather than blocking the attack, namely the new Heat system. Think of Heat as what V-Trigger was in Street Fighter V, except you're able to utilize it at any point during a round instead of near KO, which gives some characters like Jun or Devil Jin an easy set robbery simply because they pressed 2+4 before you did.
That being said, defensiveness is still entirely possible within the game, but compared to it's predecessors like Tekken 6 or TTT2, you're better off forcing your opponent to constantly guess 50/50s rather than learning a matchup in full. The developers are acutely aware of this change, seeing as how some characters have reworked moves to account for the aggressive nature of the game, like Kazuya for example, giving him access to his Mist Step (crouch dash) after inputting 3,1.
"But, hasn't Kazuya always been a 50/50 vortex monster?" Yes. Oh, absolutely yes. But even with his strong 50/50 tools, you were still able to contest players without utilizing a more gimmicky hellsweep-filled playstyle, and instead played around his strong punish game with moves like Demon God Fist, Abolishing Fist, or his famous EWGF (or PEWGF if you're skilled enough :3).
I think I rambled. Anyway, my point is that the game strays away from the more defensive and strategic gameplay that the franchise has been known for. While it does feel fresh and unique, it opens up a lot of more obnoxious, nearly braindead playstyles that get abused on the daily, which makes veteran Tekken fans having to adapt to game feel that contradicts the legacy the franchise has had set.
It's still a fun game though. Just wish the exploitative rushdown mentality was more of an outlier than the staple way to play.
Plus the story mode was a letdown in most areas. UNFORTUNATE! I'll update my review once Eddy comes out, there'll probably be a couple balance changes once that happens.
I don't like Asuka players.
2022
20 Minutes Till Dawn (or 20MTD) offers a surprising amount of depth with every run from beginning to end, and accomplishes to supply a full rogue-lite experience in a very short timeframe. Though a difficult game, there is enough balance (or lack thereof) to make you, the player, able to progress through each run without feeling like you've been beaten senseless by the developers.
Everything but the dirt you tread will try to kill you- trees included! The difficulty of this game isn't to be understated, whether the factors that make up the difficulty are intentional or not. An unintentional hurdle that you have to jump over is the visibility of the the character(s) you play as, and the enemies that you face. The color palette the game uses emphasizes a very specific aesthetic that's seldom seen in other media, but it can harm the player by disrupting the gameplay flow as the timer gets closer to completing a run. Enemies can and will overpopulate the screen, which while it may seem like an arbitrary nitpick considering the genre of the game, it can confuse a player as to where they can and cannot move simply due to the different entities blending in with one another as well as the background. There have been a lot of moments during my game sessions where my run will suddenly end, and the only thing I can think of is "What even killed me?" Fortunately, the developers have circumvented the visibility issue by adding a toggle in the settings that enable outlines for you, and the enemies. I highly recommend enabling this option!
The depth of the game comes from the ability to pick a character along with a weapon, which is a huge feat over other games in the genre like HoloCure or Vampire Survivors. This allows players to craft and experiment with different builds that are vastly different from one another, and increase the games longevity tenfold simply due to the fact. Personally, a build I've been having a lot of fun with is using the character Spark with a shotgun, and upgrades that revolve around effects applied to my character/summons upon reloading such as Holy Arts, Fresh Clip, or every upgrade under the Electromancy skill tree.
20MTD offers an engaging rogue-lite to players who are simply looking to accomplish a lot in little time, or those seeking a challenge that rewards those for their competency. I'm surprised that the game is as cheap as it is, which is currently selling at $5.00 USD at like Steam or the Epic Games store. Play it if you haven't yet.
Everything but the dirt you tread will try to kill you- trees included! The difficulty of this game isn't to be understated, whether the factors that make up the difficulty are intentional or not. An unintentional hurdle that you have to jump over is the visibility of the the character(s) you play as, and the enemies that you face. The color palette the game uses emphasizes a very specific aesthetic that's seldom seen in other media, but it can harm the player by disrupting the gameplay flow as the timer gets closer to completing a run. Enemies can and will overpopulate the screen, which while it may seem like an arbitrary nitpick considering the genre of the game, it can confuse a player as to where they can and cannot move simply due to the different entities blending in with one another as well as the background. There have been a lot of moments during my game sessions where my run will suddenly end, and the only thing I can think of is "What even killed me?" Fortunately, the developers have circumvented the visibility issue by adding a toggle in the settings that enable outlines for you, and the enemies. I highly recommend enabling this option!
The depth of the game comes from the ability to pick a character along with a weapon, which is a huge feat over other games in the genre like HoloCure or Vampire Survivors. This allows players to craft and experiment with different builds that are vastly different from one another, and increase the games longevity tenfold simply due to the fact. Personally, a build I've been having a lot of fun with is using the character Spark with a shotgun, and upgrades that revolve around effects applied to my character/summons upon reloading such as Holy Arts, Fresh Clip, or every upgrade under the Electromancy skill tree.
20MTD offers an engaging rogue-lite to players who are simply looking to accomplish a lot in little time, or those seeking a challenge that rewards those for their competency. I'm surprised that the game is as cheap as it is, which is currently selling at $5.00 USD at like Steam or the Epic Games store. Play it if you haven't yet.
2023
The Finals shows promise in being the next big PVP shooter, but lacks the depth that would keep a casual player from coming back. The systems and gameplay are fresh and intuitive, which can be a hard thing for small studios to accomplish (in direct comparison with their competitors), but the output is simply underwhelming. The TTK in The Finals feels like an arbitrary way of balancing every weapon, which I guess works, but for a fast paced game like this it just doesn't fit in.
Plus I'm not exactly a huge fan of the AI Voice Announcers, though it does fit with the setting completely.
Plus I'm not exactly a huge fan of the AI Voice Announcers, though it does fit with the setting completely.
Incredibly short yet engaging visual novel surrounding a mentally ill girl gathering the courage interacting with a seemingly foreign and alien outside world, tasked with buying milk at a store.
There's an interesting dynamic between you, the player, and the protagonist of the story. You aren't just someone watching a story unfold, you're there along the way. The reader is an intricate part of the protagonists life, as she directly talks with the player and seeks guidance rather than being completely alone.
Despite only using about 3 colors, there's a lot of emotion displayed in the images that you are shown as the protagonist makes their way to and from the grocery store. The characters you encounter are eerie amalgamations of flesh and organs that may look human at first, but are something entirely unfamiliar.
Total playtime is like 15 minutes, maybe 10 at the very least, but it's still impactful enough to still be remembered piece by piece even after you complete the game either once, or several times.
There's an interesting dynamic between you, the player, and the protagonist of the story. You aren't just someone watching a story unfold, you're there along the way. The reader is an intricate part of the protagonists life, as she directly talks with the player and seeks guidance rather than being completely alone.
Despite only using about 3 colors, there's a lot of emotion displayed in the images that you are shown as the protagonist makes their way to and from the grocery store. The characters you encounter are eerie amalgamations of flesh and organs that may look human at first, but are something entirely unfamiliar.
Total playtime is like 15 minutes, maybe 10 at the very least, but it's still impactful enough to still be remembered piece by piece even after you complete the game either once, or several times.
Black Mesa is a fan-made reimagining of Valve Software's Half-Life, attempting to modernize the late 90s action hit with more immersive features, rebuilding some sections of the game from the ground up, and does so astonishing well while keeping the same harrowing motifs and captivating gameplay that Valve originally envisioned.
2002
I've recently picked up Pac-Man World 2 again out of nostalgia just to see if the game really is as good as I thought it was when I was really young. I've never in my life been a Pac-Man fan, but for some reason this game was really important to me as a kid for whatever reason. Unfortunately, the game is nowhere near as good as I thought it was.
Pac-Man World 2 is a basic 3D platformer in which you play as Pac-Man, and your main objective is to retrieve golden fruits that were stolen by the four ghosts in order to seal away a monster that was kept locked away. It's as good of a storyline as you're gonna get in a game revolving around Pac-Man, but I don't think anyone is playing this for the story anyway.
The game's visuals are incredibly charming and cartoonish, and being paired with (now) old hardware doesn't take away from that whatsoever. Harsh shadows and vibrant colors make the game look a lot more dynamic than it actually is, whether its for better or for worse. One of the biggest reasons I picked the game back up was just to see how the lava looks again, because for whatever reason seeing that texture as a child really stuck with me, and boy lemme tell you, that lava did NOT disappoint (specifically the level Volcanic Panic).
Unfortunately, a clean visual style can't exactly keep your attention away from its core issues for long, since the negatives with the game are constantly present, though they vary depending on the area/level you're on.
A general negative with the game is the camera system. I cannot tell you how many times I've fallen down a pit or missed a jump because the camera was either getting stuck in places it shouldn't be, other props were blocking the camera completely, or that the camera moves so unfathomably slow that by the time you need to see where Pac-Man needs to land in order to avoid certain death, you've already died. It's an issue that you learn to circumvent over time, but having to compromise with a core mechanic shouldn't be something you should have to do.
Another glaringly obvious issue (if you can even call it that) is the games lack of depth. Your main objective is to get from point A to point B while collecting as many fruits and coins as you possibly can before you reach the end, but the placement of the power pellets and fruit can be... tedious at best. For example, near the ending of the level B-doing Woods there is an entire section dedicated solely to collecting fruits, though entirely optional. It would only take around 3-4 minutes extra to collect all the fruit, but why should you? The inclusion of randomly added sections like this persist throughout the entire game, which can make attempting 100% runs a lot more tedious than it needs to be, and only looks like it was a lazy afterthought from the developers just so you have more unnecessary things to do. You can probably chalk it up as the developers are encouraging you to explore different levels to see which secret paths you can find, but it gets to a point where I'd rather just finish the level early than to spend even more time collecting fruits.
Another issue with the game is the snow regions level designs (excluding the starting snow level, Ice River Run). The 2nd half of the level Avalanche Alley is a typical "run from the giant boulder (in this case, snowball) chasing you" as it appears in other media like Indiana Jones and Crash Bandicoot, but the issue with Avalanche Alley is that the course Pac-Man runs through is designed entirely against the intentions of the player, and can only truly be completed through trial and error. At the end of both sequences in which you're running from the snowball, Pac-Man is meant to leap into a red power pellet and fly away to safety. Unfortunately, the distance where you're safe to jump into it is not exactly clear, so you'll end up jumping directly into the bottomless pit beneath the red power pellet, forcing you to restart the entire sequence for no reason other than that you missed.
The ice that you're meant to jump over is also very bothersome. For instance, if you accidentally jump a few pixels too early, Pac-Man will play a slipping animation and be stunned in one position for a few seconds. It does make sense for that to happen, yes, but when the detection for whether Pac-Man slips on the ice or not is as inconsistent as it is, the entire sequence feels like a headache to go through, considering if you slip up you'll just end up restarting the snowball sequence again.
Though those complaints may seem pretty detrimental to your playing experience, the game itself is pretty fun to play. I've never been a fan of platformers, but I still found myself enjoying completing each level at the cost of total completion rate.
Something I find incredibly charming about playing new levels is seeing the different custom loading screens each level has. It's something I wish more games did, it really did feel like you were progressing through your journey to collect all the golden fruits, because you can see Pac-Man himself venturing forth.
Something the game also provides for each region is an in-game maze game, similar to the original Pac-Man game that released in 1980. The layout, environment, and music choice are all completely customized per maze, which is something I'm really glad the developers took the time to do.
All in all, Pac-Man World 2 delivers a pretty expansive platformer, at the cost of a few gameplay mishaps that usually go over most players heads. Should you go in expecting a completely fluid experience would be a foolish thought, but so long as you understand the negatives, the positives come shining through.
Pac-Man World 2 is a basic 3D platformer in which you play as Pac-Man, and your main objective is to retrieve golden fruits that were stolen by the four ghosts in order to seal away a monster that was kept locked away. It's as good of a storyline as you're gonna get in a game revolving around Pac-Man, but I don't think anyone is playing this for the story anyway.
The game's visuals are incredibly charming and cartoonish, and being paired with (now) old hardware doesn't take away from that whatsoever. Harsh shadows and vibrant colors make the game look a lot more dynamic than it actually is, whether its for better or for worse. One of the biggest reasons I picked the game back up was just to see how the lava looks again, because for whatever reason seeing that texture as a child really stuck with me, and boy lemme tell you, that lava did NOT disappoint (specifically the level Volcanic Panic).
Unfortunately, a clean visual style can't exactly keep your attention away from its core issues for long, since the negatives with the game are constantly present, though they vary depending on the area/level you're on.
A general negative with the game is the camera system. I cannot tell you how many times I've fallen down a pit or missed a jump because the camera was either getting stuck in places it shouldn't be, other props were blocking the camera completely, or that the camera moves so unfathomably slow that by the time you need to see where Pac-Man needs to land in order to avoid certain death, you've already died. It's an issue that you learn to circumvent over time, but having to compromise with a core mechanic shouldn't be something you should have to do.
Another glaringly obvious issue (if you can even call it that) is the games lack of depth. Your main objective is to get from point A to point B while collecting as many fruits and coins as you possibly can before you reach the end, but the placement of the power pellets and fruit can be... tedious at best. For example, near the ending of the level B-doing Woods there is an entire section dedicated solely to collecting fruits, though entirely optional. It would only take around 3-4 minutes extra to collect all the fruit, but why should you? The inclusion of randomly added sections like this persist throughout the entire game, which can make attempting 100% runs a lot more tedious than it needs to be, and only looks like it was a lazy afterthought from the developers just so you have more unnecessary things to do. You can probably chalk it up as the developers are encouraging you to explore different levels to see which secret paths you can find, but it gets to a point where I'd rather just finish the level early than to spend even more time collecting fruits.
Another issue with the game is the snow regions level designs (excluding the starting snow level, Ice River Run). The 2nd half of the level Avalanche Alley is a typical "run from the giant boulder (in this case, snowball) chasing you" as it appears in other media like Indiana Jones and Crash Bandicoot, but the issue with Avalanche Alley is that the course Pac-Man runs through is designed entirely against the intentions of the player, and can only truly be completed through trial and error. At the end of both sequences in which you're running from the snowball, Pac-Man is meant to leap into a red power pellet and fly away to safety. Unfortunately, the distance where you're safe to jump into it is not exactly clear, so you'll end up jumping directly into the bottomless pit beneath the red power pellet, forcing you to restart the entire sequence for no reason other than that you missed.
The ice that you're meant to jump over is also very bothersome. For instance, if you accidentally jump a few pixels too early, Pac-Man will play a slipping animation and be stunned in one position for a few seconds. It does make sense for that to happen, yes, but when the detection for whether Pac-Man slips on the ice or not is as inconsistent as it is, the entire sequence feels like a headache to go through, considering if you slip up you'll just end up restarting the snowball sequence again.
Though those complaints may seem pretty detrimental to your playing experience, the game itself is pretty fun to play. I've never been a fan of platformers, but I still found myself enjoying completing each level at the cost of total completion rate.
Something I find incredibly charming about playing new levels is seeing the different custom loading screens each level has. It's something I wish more games did, it really did feel like you were progressing through your journey to collect all the golden fruits, because you can see Pac-Man himself venturing forth.
Something the game also provides for each region is an in-game maze game, similar to the original Pac-Man game that released in 1980. The layout, environment, and music choice are all completely customized per maze, which is something I'm really glad the developers took the time to do.
All in all, Pac-Man World 2 delivers a pretty expansive platformer, at the cost of a few gameplay mishaps that usually go over most players heads. Should you go in expecting a completely fluid experience would be a foolish thought, but so long as you understand the negatives, the positives come shining through.
2017
// This review is only regarding Save the World //
Fortnite: Save the World is a PvE game where you, as you can guess, Save the World. Your character, only referred to as (the) Commander, is tasked with building outposts to fight back against a storm that wiped out 99% of mankind unexpectedly. Through the missions you complete, whether solo or optional co-op, is moving forward to find the cause of the arrival of the Storm, and a way to defeat it once and for all.
Unfortunately, the Storm was so powerful that Epic Games has ceased major updates to the story/game mode after Twine Peaks. Luckily, the game has enough seasonal/endgame content to keep players engaged.
Save the World is, in my opinion, an incredibly well put together game. The weapon variety seems nearly limitless with the different weapon perks you can upgrade them with, not to mention the amount of Heroes you can choose and create varying builds with, whether you're prioritizing gathering loot and materials, to dealing heavy consistent damage to a group of enemies.
I will say that for newer players, there are a lot of numbers and statistics that you have to keep track of that do tend to get overwhelming if you don't take the time to truly learn what suits you as a player best, but for the most part the game is entirely intuitive and requires no real mental strain so long as you understand where to look for specific resources. Save the World doesn't have the same issue as say Terraria has in which you constantly need to be flipping through an online wiki to play the game efficiently, as you're able to do most things on your own without any external help (excluding endgame info such as the Mythic Storm King).
I've been playing Save the World since around the middle of 2018, and I still find myself enjoying the game mode despite it's lack of major updates compared to the Battle Royale mode.
Fortnite: Save the World is a PvE game where you, as you can guess, Save the World. Your character, only referred to as (the) Commander, is tasked with building outposts to fight back against a storm that wiped out 99% of mankind unexpectedly. Through the missions you complete, whether solo or optional co-op, is moving forward to find the cause of the arrival of the Storm, and a way to defeat it once and for all.
Unfortunately, the Storm was so powerful that Epic Games has ceased major updates to the story/game mode after Twine Peaks. Luckily, the game has enough seasonal/endgame content to keep players engaged.
Save the World is, in my opinion, an incredibly well put together game. The weapon variety seems nearly limitless with the different weapon perks you can upgrade them with, not to mention the amount of Heroes you can choose and create varying builds with, whether you're prioritizing gathering loot and materials, to dealing heavy consistent damage to a group of enemies.
I will say that for newer players, there are a lot of numbers and statistics that you have to keep track of that do tend to get overwhelming if you don't take the time to truly learn what suits you as a player best, but for the most part the game is entirely intuitive and requires no real mental strain so long as you understand where to look for specific resources. Save the World doesn't have the same issue as say Terraria has in which you constantly need to be flipping through an online wiki to play the game efficiently, as you're able to do most things on your own without any external help (excluding endgame info such as the Mythic Storm King).
I've been playing Save the World since around the middle of 2018, and I still find myself enjoying the game mode despite it's lack of major updates compared to the Battle Royale mode.
1997
World Tour is a direct successor to Midway's original "Rampage", and provides as much content as you can probably imagine from such a simple game where your main objective is to destroy buildings and eat those who inhabit them, but that's not to say that it doesn't deliver.
Gameplay wise, World Tour has much more depth than it's predecessor, allowing players to kick (a new feature) and punch omnidirectionally while travelling to different locations, as you can guess, worldwide. With 100+ unique cities and countries, you'll most likely never run out of locations to see in a single playthrough at an arcade cabinet, though whether that's a positive or a negative is up for debate.
The three playable characters, George, Ralph, and Lizzie are all fundamentally the same in terms of how you control them, and with the controls being as simple as they are, pretty much anyone can play the game and have a good time doing so.
The soundtrack and visuals have in incredibly amount of charm to them (especially when transitioning between levels/finishing a level) and they still definitely hold up today, despite being nearly thirty years old. Call it nostalgia, but I don't think there's any other game I've played that evokes the same unrecognizable feeling that playing this game gives me. I could chalk it up to the fact that it's because the game was published from a now defunct company (Midway) that I would only ever see the arcade cabinets for in shoddy rundown areas in my town, but It's really hard to say.
Overall, pretty good game. I'd play it with my dad a lot, I think Lizzie was his favorite character. Shoutout to you, dad.
Gameplay wise, World Tour has much more depth than it's predecessor, allowing players to kick (a new feature) and punch omnidirectionally while travelling to different locations, as you can guess, worldwide. With 100+ unique cities and countries, you'll most likely never run out of locations to see in a single playthrough at an arcade cabinet, though whether that's a positive or a negative is up for debate.
The three playable characters, George, Ralph, and Lizzie are all fundamentally the same in terms of how you control them, and with the controls being as simple as they are, pretty much anyone can play the game and have a good time doing so.
The soundtrack and visuals have in incredibly amount of charm to them (especially when transitioning between levels/finishing a level) and they still definitely hold up today, despite being nearly thirty years old. Call it nostalgia, but I don't think there's any other game I've played that evokes the same unrecognizable feeling that playing this game gives me. I could chalk it up to the fact that it's because the game was published from a now defunct company (Midway) that I would only ever see the arcade cabinets for in shoddy rundown areas in my town, but It's really hard to say.
Overall, pretty good game. I'd play it with my dad a lot, I think Lizzie was his favorite character. Shoutout to you, dad.
I LOVE CHUNITHM RAHHHH
Probably the most fun rhythm game I've played, or rather one of the only few that have interested me. The song selection of Paradise Lost feels very diverse, ranging from orchestral piano-esque to full on 280bpm EDM- I think theres something that Chunithm has to offer that many could pick up, even those not used to rhythm games! With easy to understand/beginner friendly controls and tutorials, everyone can play a song they like no matter the difficulty!
I currently play on Expert levels 11-13, and I hope to get better soon!
Probably the most fun rhythm game I've played, or rather one of the only few that have interested me. The song selection of Paradise Lost feels very diverse, ranging from orchestral piano-esque to full on 280bpm EDM- I think theres something that Chunithm has to offer that many could pick up, even those not used to rhythm games! With easy to understand/beginner friendly controls and tutorials, everyone can play a song they like no matter the difficulty!
I currently play on Expert levels 11-13, and I hope to get better soon!
2012
Probably my alltime favorite visual novel. The only biggest gripe I have with the game is how long it takes for your choices to start heavily altering the path you take, but that's never an issue for first time players. I'm still going through some of the routes now, but I've completed most of them!
Rin is my favorite- and it will not be changed! Though, I do like Shizune.. and Hanako...
Rin is my favorite- and it will not be changed! Though, I do like Shizune.. and Hanako...
A very underwhelming experience once you get to see all the game has to offer.
The multiplayer, while fast paced, doesn't feel like there's too much variety in the weapons that people use considering that some of the Black Market weapons (namely the MSMC, or as it's known in the game as the XMC) are severely overpowered. There are some base game weapons like the MR6 that can win gunfights in almost an instant that make the game feel pointless when you're trying to use more niche/underrated weapons. The maps aren't so bad, though!
The base game (DLCs excluding ZC) zombies experience is even more underwhelming than the Multiplayer experience, though that's probably solely out of my bias for the zombies gamemode. As a standalone product, the gamemode is really easy to progress through and is a good enough experience if you're only looking for a quick zombies match, but with all the crutches that the game offers you (Gobblegum, Mega gobblegum, more health, slide cancelling (cringe btw)) it doesn't feel like it's too much of a challenge. The weapon pool for Zombies is also very exasperating, as nearly every weapon you can buy off the wall or from the mystery box feels the exact same across the board as every other weapon. There's a reason that the most "Round 100 challenges" are completed mostly on BO3, as the game pretty much guides you the entire way through. Bullets aren't doing enough damage? Don't worry- double packing your weapons will give you an instant kill against a group of zombies every 15 seconds or so. The maps' easter eggs are built off of what Origins in BO2 created in that you are to solve a variety of steps and puzzles while crafting items along the way as you need to. That in itself is alright, but when every single map is pretty much the same thing with a different layout/aesthetic, it starts to feel really tedious to do the same thing over and over. Though, as a Zombies fan I really shouldn't be crying about repetition...
I haven't played the campaign, and I do not plan to. Have you seen anyone gas up the campaign?
The multiplayer, while fast paced, doesn't feel like there's too much variety in the weapons that people use considering that some of the Black Market weapons (namely the MSMC, or as it's known in the game as the XMC) are severely overpowered. There are some base game weapons like the MR6 that can win gunfights in almost an instant that make the game feel pointless when you're trying to use more niche/underrated weapons. The maps aren't so bad, though!
The base game (DLCs excluding ZC) zombies experience is even more underwhelming than the Multiplayer experience, though that's probably solely out of my bias for the zombies gamemode. As a standalone product, the gamemode is really easy to progress through and is a good enough experience if you're only looking for a quick zombies match, but with all the crutches that the game offers you (Gobblegum, Mega gobblegum, more health, slide cancelling (cringe btw)) it doesn't feel like it's too much of a challenge. The weapon pool for Zombies is also very exasperating, as nearly every weapon you can buy off the wall or from the mystery box feels the exact same across the board as every other weapon. There's a reason that the most "Round 100 challenges" are completed mostly on BO3, as the game pretty much guides you the entire way through. Bullets aren't doing enough damage? Don't worry- double packing your weapons will give you an instant kill against a group of zombies every 15 seconds or so. The maps' easter eggs are built off of what Origins in BO2 created in that you are to solve a variety of steps and puzzles while crafting items along the way as you need to. That in itself is alright, but when every single map is pretty much the same thing with a different layout/aesthetic, it starts to feel really tedious to do the same thing over and over. Though, as a Zombies fan I really shouldn't be crying about repetition...
I haven't played the campaign, and I do not plan to. Have you seen anyone gas up the campaign?
2020
There's always something new to do in Cyberpunk, at least to someone who's not really too used to Role Playing games, which is a great thing for a new player like me! The game can be pretty linear at times with the storytelling, but you as a character (V) change so heavily with each playthrough that the path you decide to enter is bent to your will and how you grow/change in Night City. There's a very clear emotional attachment that you're made to feel towards the characters you come across, and the devs made it really easy to be attached to them- especially in the endgame! I'm not good at reviews.