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not morally egregious per se but rather a depressing culmination of two centuries worth of design trickery and (d)evolving cultural/social tastes and otherwise exists as insipid casinocore autoplaying bullshit that leaves you feeling the same way as you did moments after blasting rope to that fucked up mmm ice cream so tasty thing you found in the middle of a reddit doomscroll. this game should come with a contractual agreement binding its devotees to never speak prejudicially about mobile games or musou or vampire survivors or people whose lives have been ruined by industrialised gambling practices. you seen that casinos have RFID wristbands now that let you re-ante by just waving your hand across the slots? goes great with the simulated day/night lighting and complementary alcoholic energy drinks. endless hours of fun! fuck the review man let's talk the end of the world in the comments below

Are we so gullible? Do we as an audience not demand anything from our art? There's no story, no new mechanics, no real characters, no interesting or enjoyable visuals, no compelling gameplay, no original ideas at all in fact. Is a faceless strawman to antagonise really enough to get millions of people to play an Unreal Engine asset flip made as artlessly as possible? Is no one else actively disturbed by how blatantly and gracelessly this rips mechanics from every popular game of the last 2 decades, without integrating any of them together whatsoever? Has art ever felt this cynical before?

Feel free to discount my opinion. I am a 'salty Pokemon fanboy' after all, and I only gave this game an hour or so of my not particularly highly valued time. I personally just prefer the art I engage with to care for the art form it sits within, even a little bit. Palworld hates video games. It sees nothing more within them than a collection of things to do and hopes that by shovelling a flaccid farcical version of as many of them as possible into your mouth it will somehow constitute a 'video game' when all is said and done. It doesn't. I'm deeply saddened that so many gamers think so lowly of our art form that they genuinely think this is acceptable.

KinitoPet has lots of merits but it falls flat as a horror experience. The old internet aesthetic is very neat and some of the 4th wall breaks give some chills. However the abuse of jumpscares, flashing images and creepy faces(Analog horror tropes) makes it a really annoying game to sit through.
Not to mention that it almost crosses the line of fake malware. The developer really has potential to make something unique and great in the future, but overall the premise is much more interesting than the execution.

It's difficult to pinpoint what Minecraft does so differently that other games, before or after its inception, can't seem to be able to remotely capture. Regardless of how many years have passed since its Alpha days, booting the game up and spending those first couple of hours building dirt houses and digging ridiculously autistic tunnel systems still represent some of the most magical and captivating moments I have experienced in a videogame. A maverick trail-blazer of game design, Minecraft disregards any previous notions of what makes or breaks a game, and instead plops you into an indifferent and artifical world without any seemingly narrative context and invites the player to fill it with life and personality by leaving his permanent mark on it, starting right off the bat by having you punch wood out of trees and that totally making sense.

Either a stroke of genius or just pure luck, the combination of cutesy and colorful lego like aesthetic with the occasional lonely and scary desolation nature gives Minecraft a surprisingly introspective atmosphere, making grand statements about human labor and wilderness conquest out of simple moments like finally finishing that perfect wooden balcony as you watch the square sun rising and "Wet Hands" starts to play. The tangible and real threat of Minecraft's permanent item loss and unwillingness to throw the player a bone or hold his hand, turns the mere idea of exploring the outskirts of your comfy man hole into a cautious adventure that has you feeling a sense of joy as you catch on your way back the familiarity of your ever evolving house on the horizon, and turns a simple detour that leaves you lost in the woods at night into a dreadful nightmare that has you frantically searching for a light source inbetween the trees as you dodge a horde of zombies and skellies.

While there is some truth to the criticism that "there's nothing to do" in Minecraft, which can be attributed to its low skill ceiling and diminishing returns as you run out of goals and ideas, the devs have been intelligent enough to not mess with the core appeal of the game with its inumerous updates over the years, and that's letting the player find his own fun, be that building a giant castle at the top of a mountain, building a minecart track that crosses a lava lake in the Nether, conquering The End and beating the Ender Dragon, or simply exploding enough TNT at once to crash the game.

I still can't decipher Minecraft after all these years. All I know is that I keep coming back, be it with a group of friends, or by myself. I still find its quiet and randomized world to be beautfiul and imaginative. I still love how the animals and enemies look and sound. I still can't get over how perfect and effective its oddly sad soundtrack is. I still get a stupid grin on my face when I manage to make the simplest of redstone mechanisms work. I still shit my pants every time I fall into a sense of safety around my home base and suddenly hear that dreaded hiss behind me as I watch my work explode. I dunno, it's a very good game.

After taking a brief detour to review Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon, I'm back to finish up my Castlevania write-ups. This isn't part of my bucket list, because for some reason I didn't think to add my most favorite Castlevania game and instead force myself to play shit like Wrath of the Black Manta and Ecco the Dolphin. Nobody can harm me the way I harm me.

Rondo of Blood is well known as the direct predecessor of perineal favorite Symphony of the Night. Indeed, the connection between the games is so direct that Richter's final fight against Mr. Dracula serves as Symphony's opening, with Richter himself becoming the primary antagonist for the first half of the game. Unfortunately, if you grew up in the states your lead-in was instead the abysmal Dracula X, with a localization of Rondo not happening until 2007. The TurgoGrafx-16 CD did not do well here. It didn't do well at all! And that's a real bummer, because Rondo of Blood in a lot of ways feels like a send-off to "Classicvania," something that is made more apparent with its direct ties to Symphony. It's both a triumphant final lap and a passing of the torch, and if you rolled into Symphony of the Night off of Dracula X then... well, damn. I'm sorry you got did like that.

All of Castlevania's well-established mechanics are here. Jumping is still stiff, though like other Vanias of this era, you have mid-air control over the direction of your jump, which allows for smoother platforming. There is no diagonal whipping, but it's unnecessary as keeping your whip purely horizontal breeds challenge without ever feeling like a handicap. Familiar enemies return (especially if you've played Symphony first, cause oh boy does that game use every part of the buffalo), including Medusa Heads, Fleamen, and Axe Knights; and though you no doubt know how to deal with them by now, they're not even the slightest bit less threatening. Fleamen are still bastards. They were always bastards, and I will send them to the grave as bastards. However, for as familiar as everything in Rondo is, it's all been refined to a needle-sharp point. In a lot of ways I'd compare Rondo to Sonic 3 & Knuckles. It's really hard to beat the level of quality here, and it is in fact so good that it's difficult to envision Konami being able to do anything else to push this specific style of gameplay forward.

Rondo also brings back Dracula Curse's alternate routes, and a variation on that game's partner rescuing mechanic. In Rondo, accessing alternate routes is a bit more involved than simply choosing which path to take at the end of a level. Rather, certain pits, doors, and switches can open up new pathways for Richter to take mid-level, which provides a strong incentive to explore (see: whip everything.) Thoroughl exploration is also nessecary for saving Rondo's four "maidens," including Richter's girlfriend Annette and fellow vampire hunter Maria Renard. Maria can be found the earliest and also becomes a playable character should you free her. Maria's familiars deal an insane amount of damage and she has different movement tech than Richter, and is overall a lot of fun to play as, though not as much as she is in Symphony. But that's for Saturn fans only...

I can't possibly wrap up my thoughts on Rondo without touching on its aesthetics. The game opens with a German narration as Dracula is resurrected, and after starting the game proper, you're treated to an Anime as Hell sequence of Richter gearing up and whipping some ghouls. There's a few cutscenes done in this style throughout the game, and I have a big soft spot for these kinds of quasi-FMVs. They remind me a lot of the cutscenes in Snatcher, and that's always a good thing. The soundtrack is another highlight and is mostly comprised of remixes of familiar Castlevania tunes. Multiple composers worked on the OST, and among them is Metal Yuhki (sick name) who is responsible for Rondo's versions of Bloody Tears and Vampire Killer. However, my favorite track not just in Rondo but across the entire series is Picture of a Ghost Ship, which just sounds so positively 90s in a way I can't quite pin down. I'm not normally one to link to remixes since they really don't have anything to do with critiques of a game's soundtrack, but I would be remiss in not sharing my favorite version of this song.

Every single part of Rondo comes together perfectly for me. The presentation, its sense of style, the tension, the atmosphere, and most of all the gameplay... Yeah I kinda suck at playing it because it's freaking hard, and I might get a bit frustrated at Level 4 - "The Inner Halls" due to its length and abundance of Fleamen, Axe Knights, and spike traps, but I also just can't bring myself to knock even a meager half star off my review. This one is an easy 5/5.

the game that timelessly encapsulates the occult appeal of classic castlevania. was incredibly impressed by the striking cutscene presentation and elegantly strong soundtrack, taking great advantage of the powerful hardware that was ahead of its contemporaries. multiple routes, playable characters, endings; rondo’s ambitions paved their way to success accompanied by rewardingly difficult gameplay. every stage is crafted with a level of expertise that enforces you to be at your best while not being frustrating. both an evolution of, and tribute to the formula. classicvanias werent really my thing, and still kind of arent, but i seriously commend rondo for what it does and i did enjoy myself a whole lot throughout the adventure. the artistic integrity and ingenuity of the series is probably represented best here. super memorable and visually stirring. everything is just very earnestly cool. so many details hidden within every level just for the sake of contextualizing each area that much more. statues, weapons, and even paintings animating to life never gets old. rondo of blood is THE castlevania, for both old and new fans. konami if you liked money youd get your asses on porting requiem to shit that isnt ps4. unexpectedly been in a castlevania mood as of late but im not complaining, love this series. important lesson here is that small children have the power to do anything in pursuit of accusing someone for being “mean.”