338 reviews liked by psychbomb


Bandai-Namco released Boomeroad worldwide two days ago as part of a suite of simple and experimental games to train new recruits from their indie developer Gyaar Studio. The concept here combines a standard 3D platformer with boomerang throwing that creates grindable rails that can be chained for extended mid-air traversal. You refresh your energy gauge by passing through rings and landing on platforms, and you can increase the gauge's capacity by collecting optional artifacts. Unfortunately, the gameplay is undercooked. You can't adjust the shape of the boomerang's arc besides flattening the upward curve a little, there's very few interactable objects (switches and fans) that force the player to throw the boomerang at them for activation, and you can in fact avoid most of these elements entirely by throwing two chained boomerang arcs to climb up and walk on top of the level's walls, skipping entire sections of the level while never running out of gauge. While I thought speedrun mode would mitigate most of these shortcomings, I don't find the movement satisfying enough because there's fairly little momentum conserved upon jumping off of rails for speeding up, so the movement itself lacks weightiness and route planning isn't very interesting when you're incentivized to just follow the set path of rings for time bonuses. I suppose there's only so much I can complain about a free game nevertheless, and although I don't see Gyaar Studio returning to this, I do think they've got a solid concept on their hands that could prove to be an interesting 3D puzzle-platformer if thoroughly fleshed out with more committal movement and tighter level design.

Massively underrated or just Made For Me to a degree no other game has ever been? A little bit of both. Either way, this is going in my 5-star Favorite Games Of All Time Superstar Club.

A much superior game to Shinobi 2002, and also maybe the best action game I've played since Ninja Gaiden, Nightshade is exactly what I like in my action games to a degree that I wonder if I actually designed this game through some rift in time. We need to start considering games like this and Ninja Gaiden Black as art games. I think incredibly stylish and well-choreographed action are as artistically unique uses of the medium as boring-as-fuck shit I'll never in a million years finish like Kentucky Route Zero.

One of the absolute best designed ninja suits ever, worn by a badass woman, incredibly fast and skillful gameplay, style and substance, with an incredible drum'n'bass soundtrack to boot. The game would have to periodically cut to episodes of Columbo if I were to rate it any higher.

This is a 5-star based on vibes alone, as I really don't think this one is for everyone. It's incredibly difficult, requires precision and mastery on a level that most will find frustrating, and the camera, while a massive improvement on Shinobi's, is still not ideal for the later level's bottomless pits. From my personal standpoint, you absolutely should play this with save states, as the general checkpoint system is far too punitive for the kind of accuracy it demands from you. It's VERY old-school in that sensibility.

It also has many difficulty options, including a beginner mode which I found very welcoming of the game after the US release of Shinobi cut the easy mode for god-knows-why. Shinobi is a game I really like, but find WAY too unwelcoming and prickly to truly love. It's like a friend's really ill-behaved cat, where you know that little piece of shit is going to scratch or hiss at you just for daring to exist near it. Impossible to love but too endearing to hate.

A lot of this comes to Hibana feeling better to control than Hotsuma, especially in-air. Shinobi would demand a lot of perfect air-combos, but Hotsuma didn't feel quite as maneuverable and lacked a dedicated kick button, meaning enemies who could block you were a massive pain in the ass. The most immediate improvement Nightshade adds is that Hibana can kick from the air, giving you better gap-closing opportunities, better combo extension, and allows for you to deftly navigate the game's bottomless pits through knowing how to RESET those in-air combos. It feels much more stylish and skillful than Shinobi, while giving it the necessary bit of streamlining to feel more approachable.

I also played the undub of this game, as one of the biggest "What the fuck" changes is removing the Japanese dub entirely. Shinobi was pretty unique in letting you listen to the Japanese voice track instead of the English dub. This isn't a huge problem as for the era, these dubs aren't actually that bad. I like Hibana's voice in the English dub, and my research indicates that her voice actress also was interviewed in documentaries about Joan Crawford and Greta Garbo, which is curious. More curious is Hisui, who is voiced by "E. Cahill", which, and I'm not sure, might be Erin Cahill, better known as Jen Scotts from Power Rangers: Time Force. I have watched many hours of Power Rangers throughout my adult life, and a lot of them was on Time Force, and I REALLY don't know if they are the same. Who is the same though is Hibana's japanese voice actress, Atsuko Tanaka, who has been in EVERYTHING EVER. You might know her best as Motoko Kusanagi in Stand Alone Complex and the dub voice for Lisa in Night Trap. Her voice for Hibana is sooooo good, applying a very deep and professional tone with this cool-guy edge you rarely get to see a female character have. She manages to be a consummate professional like Hotsuma while being incredibly distinct from him in her devil may care attitude in contrast to Hotsuma's grave seriousness.

One of the most striking things about Hibana is her flare for style. Hotsuma's TATE poses were classic ninja-movie stuff: dude puts his sword away calmly while his enemies collapse to pieces. Hibana is more willing to strike a pose: spinning her knives, holding her sword in the air, and the more TATEs you build up the more dramatic. Pulling off the 30 TATE might be when I decided this was a 5-star game, it was so enormously difficult, as Nightshade punishes you HARD for input spamming, forcing you to get a rhythm down to approaching TATEs. It was then I realized that Nightshade was cooking in a way no one really appreciated, in the similar way Sekiro feels rhythmic in its combat encounters, building long-stretches of TATEs in Nightshade is the same way!

The rhythm of this is enhanced by the BEAUTIFUL MATSERPIECE M'WAH PERFECTO soundtrack consisting of the best drum'n'bass ever fucking PRODUCED. Composed by a ton of Sega pros, one of the most notable names on here is Fumie Kumatani: the composer for all the BEST TRACKS in Sonic Adventure 1 and 2. She was also responsible for the best tracks in Shinobi!! She can do no wrong!

Here are some of my favorite tunes, including the composer name as sourced from VGMDB.

Shinobi Tate by Fumie Kumatani
https://youtu.be/Nl930cF0tVU?si=EwDidZuTuXPeROaJ
Overcome Speed by Keiichi Sugiyama
https://youtu.be/MjCJuppjOG8?si=iyzeCCjOLmNjRb5p
Dark Kingdom by Tomonori Sawada
https://youtu.be/8ZN8vzehu4c?si=bLXEisdEXEYjQmQN
Jade Water by Fumie Kumatani
https://youtu.be/hZT1ZB-VQBc?si=eqM6PIEcUsxpAklq

As with Shinobi, this OST is a must-listen if you like D'n'B, as they assembled the fucking Avengers of the Amen Break on this one.

I have written more words about Nightshade than have been written in 20 years, so I'll try and wrap it up. I find this an immensely stylish and rewarding game with a surprisingly dramatic and well-directed storyline, with gameplay improving on everything Shinobi did while adding in more. Bosses are more mechanically interesting, levels feel more considered, and movement feels fantastic once you get its intricacies down. It's not gonna be for everyone, but it was for me more than any game really could hope to be.

I love the way exploration works here; the refusal to budge on fast travel save for diegetic ox carts, snatching back dark arisen's infinite ferrystone, and stretching the landmass both horizontally and (especially) vertically is wonderful. in many, many ways it's a bigger, slower, denser game, and they did it all while focusing on the most mundane environments devoid of giant theme park attractions bulging from every flat surface

likewise I love the idea of elaborating on the sense of traversal and moving toward a holistic spirit of adventure. deteriorating health ceilings aid attrition and help answer the inherent slime of menu heals, and having campfire rests operate as something of a risk/reward mechanism goes a long way toward giving each journey a greater heft and substance

even something as transparently gamey as designing the map as a network of funnels and chokepoints stippled with smaller threats and crosshatched with bigger ones was very clever; it's all just nouns crashing against nouns as they fire down chutes, but when coupled with the meaty physicality of the game's interactivity it goes a long way toward building up those Big Moments

but the consequence of trash mobs operating as speedbumps means moment-to-moment encounters operate more as filler than anything you could consider independently engaging scenarios. it also means that despite the map being several times larger than gransys it ends up feeling a lot more suffocating due to all the overlapping nouns slamming and interrupting each other without end

I just about luxuriated in the rare opportunities to enjoy brief spells of negative space; I savoured it like one of those FMV steaks. I'd kill for more moments like the arbor or the battleground where I was able to inhabit the world as a pilgrim or wanderer rather than serial wolf slaughterer or battahl sanitation expert, but they're very few and far between

there's no escaping the impenetrable walls of goblins, wolves, harpies, and saurians polluting every inch of the world. the already slender DD bestiary's been ported over nearly 1:1 with about as many additions as subtractions, and between the absurd density and massive landmass the variety ends up looking and feeling significantly worse than it did when it was first pilloried twelve years ago in a notoriously incomplete game

when the Big Moments do happen they're often spectacular, and it's easy to see why the chaotic intersection of AI, systems, and mechanics was prioritized so heavily and centered as the focal point of the entire experience. early on every bridge that breaks behind you, every ogre leaping from city walls, and every gryphon that crushes your ox cart feels huge and spellbinding; the game's at its best when all the moving parts align just right to achieve dynamic simulacrum, leveraging unpredictability to carry encounters well above their station

where that stuff loses me most is in the complete lack of friction. for a game with so many well considered means of drawing tension out of discovery it manages to render most of them meaningless when you're never being properly threatened enough to let them kick in. camping, eating, crafting, consumables, ambushes, and setpieces all take a significant blow from the chronic lack of bite, and it's frustrating to see so much potential go to waste when everything's already set up unbelievably well for success

even if you choose to go it alone, or do as I did and run with a party of two (ida + ozma: wily beastren + weakest creature), it only does so much when every corner of the map has CAPCOM Co., Ltd superpawns and npcs popping out of the ground to aid you unbidden and monsters are all mâché sculptures begging to be stunlocked. where's hard mode? why does it feel like everything DDDA did right got ignored? we just don't know

I'd have been happy if the game yanked a bit of control back with some kinda endgame/post-game dungeon, but there isn't one; there aren't really dungeons in general. in opting for quantity (50+!!) over quality we end up with none of them feeling particularly curated, and none of them having the scope or menace of the everfall, let alone bitterblack. no ur-dragon either, which is just baffling. the entire run from endgame to post-game is a gaping hole where something oughta be but certainly isn't

when I hit credits I felt almost confused, like I'd just been tricked into playing a remake or reboot of the original dragon's dogma that somehow had less material stretched even thinner. I enjoyed what I played for the most part, but the more thought I put into it the more it feels compromised and unfinished in all the exact ways itsuno promised over and over it wouldn't be this time around

there's a lot to love here: stuff like fucked up modular teeth, the sphinx, seeker coin platforming, pawn bullshitting, the dragonsplague, cyclops ragdolls, opaque sidequests, intentional tedium, and bizarre interactions. much of what was good in the past remains good here, and even bits that stumble backward generally land someplace close to decent regardless. some of the vocation/gear downgrades aren't to my liking, and there's an odd shallowness that hangs over the experience, but I think I liked it?

I just don't really get it

Reviews of other games: The deckbuilder combat is certainly enthralling, but I'm not sure if it synergizes with the roguelike structure or if it's just a cheap and trendy cash-in, similar to yesteryear's Soulslikes...

Reviews of P3R: When I was fourteen years old I would lay in bed with my eyes open and ask for God to kill me. My brother left behind a beat-up PS2 after he went off to college where he would later die of an OD

Stuck with this slack-jawed pawn with bug eyes. There's literal stink lines trailing off of him and he keeps rubbing blood from his diseased gums on the dungeon walls.

For some reason the game runs at 20fps when he's around, please advise.

My parents shipped me off to a vocational school when I was 16, at their wits end with my hooliganism. I suppose they thought learning how to weld would sort me out or something. This school was a "last stop" for a lot of kids whose parents ran out of rope to give, or who were otherwise court ordered to attend short of ending up in juvie. A considerable amount of the student body had a rougher background than mine and came from homes more fractured or communities that were deeply disenfranchised.

And everyone there loved Dragon Ball Z: Budokai 3 (also, Gauntlet Legends, but we're not talking about that today.)

Actually, it may be more accurate to say they just loved Dragon Ball. Budokai 3 was the newest game at the time and so it got the most play, but it was just as common to find kids huddled around a CRT watching Dragon Ball GT. The guy who had that GT set was also had a copy of Big Money Rustlas and I'm sorry to report that I've been conditioned through overexposure to adore both. Many flavors of Faygo touched my lips during this era.

The thing about Dragon Ball is that it had penetrated so many social barriers by 2004 that it had attained total cultural saturation. Playing these games, Budokai 3 in particular, and simply sharing a love for the series helped me expand my social bubble and connect with others during a particularly low point in my life. I also mained Kid Buu, so everyone knew I was a motherfucker. My Dragon Ball GT loving, Juggalo, furry friend taught me to never hide who you are, and who I am is a little pink goblin that can't be touched and will send his fist through the ground to punch you in the groin.

Though I'm typically bad at fighting games, there was a period where I was so practiced at Budokai 3 that nailing precision dodges and teleport chains was purely reflexive. Sure, this is partly due to being confined to a facility where the only other things to do was play billiards or hang out at a rundown single-screen theater that mostly ran crap like The Ladykillers, but you know, some of that was pure talent! Revisiting it now for the first time since leaving that school felt like slipping into a warm bath. Familiar, cozy, and-- whoa wait shit why is Cell spamming his ultimate like that HELP!!

Budokai 3 plays a lot better than the previous two games but is still compromised in several areas. Characters control largely the same as each other with little in the way of unique playstyles, but the capsule system feels more robust and better allows you to create a build unique to you, for example. Techniques look flashy and do well to capture key moments from the show and manga, but the rush attack and accompanying button guessing minigame wears thin and becomes a pace breaker fast. There's a lot of give and take here, but you can unlock Kid Goku so I'm afraid it's just the best Budokai game there is. I'm sorry. I don't make the rules.

The story mode is limited to 11 of the roster's 32 characters, and most of its replayability comes in the form of alternate routes, hidden fights, and secrets. There's a good amount to do, but the jog through DBZ's main four arcs is severely truncated and at times plays fast and loose with its canon (Goku survives the Raditz fight in Piccolo's story, for example, but the game doesn't explore this fully.) Dialog is rife with spelling errors, kerning issues, and there's a number of portraits that are off-model. Characters who existed mostly on the periphery like Tien or Yamcha or even those who were present in the story but largely inactive during long stretches are represented here, but much of their story modes involve bouncing between disperate points on a map to get maybe two or three lines of dialog... Many of the Dragon Ball games of this era just assume you're deeply familiar with the story and don't make much of an effort, so it's not surprising that Budokai 3 offloads a considerable amount of its narrative to your imagination.

And I'm fine with that. Budokai 3 isn't perfect by any means, but like the very boring man that I am, I'm perfectly capable of recognizing its faults and enjoying it regardless. That's only possible with the maturity laying bricks for two years builds... I think, I don't know.

I had planned on replaying this much further down the road (maybe around September), but as Akira Toriyama's untimely passing affected fans all over the world, it made me reflect on my time with Budokai 3 and appreciate something I understood back in 2004: Dragon Ball suffers no barriers.

I hate the mobile game business model from somewhere deep in my gut. Extortion preying on the rich and the impulsive. A vulture feasting on the innards of creatives, shitting in the water as it flies overhead. The band is dragged lower for everyone with every month these ticks stay latched onto gamer asses.

See you all next GW.

lot of cute ideas but ultimately not executed in a way that's interesting or distinct from other "heckin' wholesome games that turns out to be a SCARY game". it plays its hand way too early with no buildup and barely tries to even hide the genre mix-up midway through, leading to a woefully boring and overplayed yandere-type antagonist at the end of the road.

thank god we're out of this era of storytelling in gaming, it should've died with doki doki.

a fun experience at best but dreadfully overhyped and unoriginal at worst.

What we have here is an incredible action game with a high skill ceiling. Would be a shame if someone added worms to it...

First things first: Ninja Gaiden Black looks incredible running on a Series X. There is a level of clarity and sharpness here that you just won't see in most other backwards compatible Xbox games - not unless it's also developed by Team Ninja - and even some 360 games upscaled to 4k don't look nearly as good. You can see every pixel on Rachel, and I know because I've spent hours in the lab analyzing her model. I have access to high-end Digital Foundry tools, and you will not believe the frame graph I've generated for Ryu's crotch-- this technology was NOT intended for these purposes!

Now this is where I out myself as a hack, because I did not beat this game on Ultra Lord-God Ninja mode or whatever the hell Ninja Gaiden Black's most powerful warriors insist is the one true way to enjoy the game. I'm a Centrist Ninja, I think any way you enjoy a game is the best way to enjoy it, even if you're a dog. A ninja dog, as some might be.

Even though I lack the requisite amount of skill to play Black on its highest difficulty, I'm more than capable of seeing what the game is going for and respect how technical it is. Look up any boss tutorial and you'll get a sense for how layered and complex Ninja Gaiden's combat can be. It's worth noting that none of the strategies therein actually helped me overcome some of Black's nastiest bosses when applied directly, but they did give me insight into the game's underlying mechanics which allowed me to develop tactics that worked for me. Brute force is seldom the answer, and Black rewards experimentation and thoughtful play, which is appreciable on any level of difficulty.

Unfortunately, I don't think I can jump onboard with the sentiment that this is the best action game ever. The rote reuse of certain bosses on normal difficulties and below can get tiresome, and though you can mitigate this by playing at higher levels, the trade comes at the cost of adding more mobs to boss battles. The few tastes I had of this during my playthrough didn't leave a positive impression, as the increased number of enemies didn't pay nice with the camera. An egregious case of this comes early with the second boss fight, where you have to manage an enemy on horseback running between the two edges of the arena while contending with wizards sniping at you and vanishing.

As the game crept on and abandoned interesting traversal for intense combat challenges in its last two levels, I found my investment waning. In a way, this is true to Ninja Gaiden's NES lineage, because like those games I found myself nearing the end and thinking "yeah I've had enough, I'm good." I understand clawing your way through several small rooms of meaty and tenacious enemies and rolling right into a boss rush is meant to be a true test of your skills, but I personally didn't find the attrition nearly as enjoyable as others. This shouldn't be taken as a full-throated dismissal of the game's combat, which I do like overall, but I did find myself waxing between disengagement and frustration towards the end.

Maybe some of my issues stem from a real bad case of Resident Evil brain for which I'm entering the terminal stages, because I found the parts of Black where you're roaming around and solving puzzles to be the most enjoyable. Yeah, I know, I'm a freak for thinking the combat is secondary to platforming and picking up weird totems to trek back to locked doors a level-and-a-half away. I have to live with myself every day of my life.

It's easy to get lost in the minutia of Ninja Gaiden Black's combat and difficulties, and if you really want to trip headfirst down the rabbit hole, you should check out all the subtle and big differences in Ninja Gaiden's many releases. I actually own a copy of 2004's Ninja Gaiden, which I mistakenly bought thinking it was a totally different game. It was only when I was a breath away from grabbing Sigma under the same assumption that I realized what I'd done, so I just have a spare lying around if anyone wants it. Just post your full address in the comments (DO NOT DO THIS, I WILL DELETE YOUR COMMENT AND SEND YOU A COPY OF AMERICA'S AMY INSTEAD AND IT WILL BE ON YOU FOR TRUSTING ME.)

Some problems inherent to the game and more still that amount to personal taste keep Ninja Gaiden Black from leaving the same impression on me that it does others, but I certainly see why people feel so passionately about it. I eagerly await them telling me how I played the game wrong and am a bastard for it, which is always the best way to get people to enjoy things the same way you do.

There's not a ton of complexity as to how Severed Steel operates and some elements need fine-tuning, but I can't help but appreciate how much the game accomplishes with surprisingly little. I'm a fan of the simple and effective UI; your aiming reticle is surrounded by two bars that convey how much ammo and slo-mo time is left (so these gauges are always near the center of attention) and the flashing light on your gun also changes color (from light neon colors to yellow to red) so you're constantly keyed in on when you'll need to pick up a gun early or engage/disengage when running low on supplies. Enemies stand out from the environment thanks to the cel-shaded enemy outlines, and upon death emit a distinct explosion sound-effect so there's no ambiguity when quickly rifling through targets during firefights or when picking off enemies from afar. Guns feel great to aim and fire in slow-mo, mainly because there's very noticeable recoil when firing in real-time; the contrast really helps sell the necessity of the feature. I also love Severed Steel's kick as both a form of attack and traversal; the obvious purpose is your primary melee attack while holding a gun if you don't want to expend your limited magazine to finish off an enemy as well as kicking open doors, but it can also be used to quickly ascend up walls or kick off of grounded/aerial enemies if your double jump isn't enough. The same goes for the arm cannon; you can fire holes into any surface if you don't feel like hunting down stairs/doorways for objectives, but it also provides a nice desperation option to instantly eliminate shielded enemies or drop heavy grunts down to another floor if you find yourself without a weapon.

Despite the appealing core gameplay, Severed Steel can often feel a bit repetitive. Enemy variety feels lacking since the player is usually approaching enemies in a similar manner (that is, entering slo-mo while using stunts to efficiently dispatch foes while firing into their heads/backsides), and I would have liked to see enemies that had to be specifically eliminated using the arm cannon or melee as mix-ups. The Rogue Steel mode does touch upon this with random enemy buffs that force such approaches, but at times I feel like this mode prefers to lengthen combat by overwhelming the player with excess enemies with more health. I do think the game could have also leaned a bit more into its parkour elements with additional stages that focused upon traversal and dodging/quickly disposing of enemies, as there were only a couple of timed story missions that necessitated a rush to the end. Finally, I have to agree with HotPocketHPE that the slo-mo gauge is unbalanced; you'll practically never run out of bullet time as long as you're staying in stunt mode (super easy since there are floors and walls aplenty to slide and wallrun), though this is again addressed from playing Rogue Steel via the "Rebalanced Bullet-Time" unlockable modifier. Even with these gripes however, Severed Steel is a pretty easy recommendation considering how content-rich the game is from its many different modes and extra campaign/workshop levels to tinker with. It was an absolute steal at 80% off on the Steam Spring Sale, and I can't wait to see how Greylock Studio iterates and improves upon their already fantastic formula.