it's super cool that the ability to play custom remixes is a finally reality in a very nice and convenient way. considering this game is completely made by fans for fans, all of the custom remixes are fan made and this game gives you all the tools to make your own stuff, it's really neat. they've even added in a few completely original fan minigames, something that wasn't asked for but is definitely welcome.

with the custom levels themselves, there are some people out there who really know how to cook up some fun and impressive levels. there are some levels i'll play that do things that are very clever or feel like they're similar in quality and thoughtfulness to something you'd see in a base rh game. at the same time though, as to be expected with open source rhythm games there are some levels that are real stinkers. not to say i put down anyone who is just trying their hand at making their own remixes, like me personally i haven't even bothered opening the level editor so other people have already made greater steps than i have. my biggest criticism though with some of these levels sometimes though is that no matter how well made or cool looking they are, it sometimes doesn't really feel like some of them are meant to be played the way some of them just throw in a fuckton of cues or have transitions between minigames that feel impossible to react to. obviously it's a case by case basis, not all levels are created this way, but there are a good handful i've played that i think have potential to be good but are just brought down by a feeling of trying way too hard, and i think sometimes the solution is to just tone it down a bit. there's a sort of balance you need to find to make a level feel difficult but still reasonable to play.

also, one last point that is more of an external factor but something i hadn't experienced until now with this game that i really don't like is acquiring custom levels. if you want to download custom levels for yourself, the only way (at least afaik) is to join the heaven studio discord and go to a channel with a massive amount of forum posts, each individual one containing a custom level someone made. in the past i've never really had to join a discord to access something like this but i've heard stories of people that have had to put up with it. usually things like the entire collection of custom levels would just be on a separate website for people to upload their own levels, but godddddd it sucks so bad to have to scroll through a bunch of individual forum posts just to find new things to play. you can search for certain levels someone may have made and there are a small selection of tags you can filter through, but considering heaven studio is still fairly new i don't even bother searching for things i want because the likelihood someone has made something specific im looking for is very slim and the small amount of search filters don't really help narrow things down. also because of this system of having to use discord to find new levels there's not a whole lot of moderation in terms of like separating the good levels from the bad like something like osu's ranked and unranked map system, so really the only way to tell if a level is gonna be well made or not is to read comments on the post for a level, or if there are no comments you just have to download and play it for yourself. given, like i said earlier, heaven studio is fairly new so all of this could be subject to change and maybe eventually there will be a better way of hosting downloads for new levels, but for the time being it's something that personally factors into my enjoyment with this game even if it isn't directly an issue within the game itself.

dude oh my god how did i forget all about this game. back in like middle school when i think i was the most into attack on titan i had been i would be on this game probably every day after school. i remember i would have my friend over and we would take turns playing and listen to like attack on titan opening 1 10 hours long mix in the background. i remember going into public lobbies where people would like hack the game or some shit and they would be playing on unreleased maps and have characters with guns way way before s3 of aot had even come out. this is just one of those games where i look back on it so fondly because of how fun it was to play and because of how into aot i was at the time, also the fact it was very mechanically rewarding to play and took a lot of time to learn. i remember first playing the game after watching people on youtube play it and when i tried myself i couldn't get titan kills for myself and basically just acted as titan bait for other people. then i think about the natural progression of getting better at this game and learning to zip by titans and charge up a slice and seeing the game tell me i got a sick ass kill, it felt so good to do.

this game also just makes me think about being a stupid kid and the time period of when i played it. what's crazy about this game is that i feel like so many other people ive talked to who were also into attack on titan when they were in middle school were also super into this game, it's like such a universal experience ive had talking to other aot fans who have been there since the anime first came out. it's just so crazy to me that a fan game could be as well made and insanely popular as this one and also the fact that nobody, not even myself, cares at all about any officially made aot games, probably because they just don't hold a candle to this one. say what you will about aot in the modern day now that the anime has finished and the story is over now, but this game was during a golden age that was undeniably such a good time to be an aot fan and i personally cant help but think back on this era affectionately.

i started a replay of this about a month ago because i remember liking this game a lot as a kid and playing it all the way through, but maybe a little under halfway through the game i put it down when ff7 rebirth came out and i started playing that and i dont have much inclination to finish my replay. it's a very whatever game that's carried by the characters considering the gameplay is extremely repetitive and easy. i guess i don't absolutely hate the gameplay but honestly it just feels like busy work to do in a game that could probably have just been made a visual novel. the characters and story are what you should be here for, they treat the story like a sitcom by having laugh tracks thrown in when characters do certain things, and while you're working on making weapons you can read dialogue of characters going out on quests with weapons you rent them. i do think the way the story is laid out is nice and i enjoy seeing the way characters behave, but the writing is very very cheesy and tropey, and occasionally they really like to date themselves by using slang people have not said since the game's release in 2014. i personally dont mind it though because i feel like the way everything is handled, it works well and gives the game a nice cozy casual feeling, but man the gameplay just being so uninvolved really brings it down. this game has potential to be one of those eshop hidden gems like something like gunman clive or pushmo but it just doesn't quite get there

rarely do i ever get post game/movie/tv show depression after finishing something but i just beat the game about 30 minutes ago and it is hitting so hard that it's over. granted i still have a little bit of side content to go back and finish so im not truly done with the game yet, but just the fact that the journey with this standalone game is done is just a whole other type of feeling. i dont really want to get into any details about gameplay or story or anything because i'd probably be here forever. in my opinion, i think the best way to sum this game up as a package is that they really flesh out essentially everything about ff7 as a world and a video game and crank it all up to 11. while i get that this game probably isn't going to be everyone's thing, for me personally it hit all the things i wanted it to and went above and beyond. i seriously can't tell you how many times i had a big goofy ass grin on my face while playing this. what a beautiful game man.

one of those games where you're hanging out with friends trying to find a new game to play, scrolling the playstation store for something, anything. then you see this on sale for like $5 and it looks so weird and stupid that you just have to get it and see what it is. at least that was my experience lol

surprisingly this game was actually kinda fun and every time i get together with a certain group of friends this is one of those games we come back to because we're like lmao what if we played action henk again, and then it turns into an actually good time where we're getting competitive with each other in the multiplayer racing mode. it's a pretty simple game that anyone can pick up and get into, iirc all you do is run, jump, and slide. the game is made up of 2d platforming challenges that encourage improving times that are all decent fun and can get relatively difficult. the only thing that i remember sucking was that in multiplayer a good chunk of the levels were locked behind having to play the singleplayer so that you could play them in the multiplayer, which i get but i just wish there was more unlocked from the get go.

my opinion might just be clouded by nostalgia for hanging out with the group i found this game with, or maybe just having memories of getting competitive with a game we all thought was gonna be ass going into it, but the pleasant surprise of having fun with action henk left a good impression. if you ever find yourself in a similar situation like i did why not give it a try if you can pick it up at a cheap price

it was a fun time with friends a long time ago back during release, but it really never captured me much outside of playing with my friends during those earlier months of its release. i think it's kind of an interesting approach to disguising a big aaa service game as a sort of almost fighting game, and mechanically i remember it being decently fun, but sometimes not the most balanced. when i'd play with friends usually i would be the one that was the most behind in terms of skill and levels in comparison to my friends and the rest of the lobby who would grind the hell out of this game, so public matches would sometimes be a blowout where i felt like i was bringing down the team. i was never really a huge fan of the game's progression and i never cared enough to play the game on my own time so it would suck being like a level 9 raider against 7 other guys who were all like prestige 3 level 17 or some shit when i would party with friends after the game had been out for a couple months and the good players were the ones who were still most active in the game. outside of that though i still got to make good memories playing private matches with friends and fucking around with the classes we rarely played as.

i think ultimately most of the fondness i associate with this game was just being able to use it as an outlet for playing a game with my friends who all didn't really have the most similar game taste. like i said before i think after the game had some time to let people get really good at it, hopping on to play some matches while being severely unexperienced and underleveled was just a pain and kinda killed the game for me. that isn't to say though that i dont think the game had something going for it, it had a neat concept and gameplay style, and there was most definitely a period of time early on where i considered the game a fun time in public lobbies.

i played this a lot more regularly back when i was in like elementary and middle school with friends and family, but i had good times and made good memories playing this game. pretty much the same thing as wii party with different main game modes that are all most likely an entertaining time with friends regardless of which game mode you pick. i also forgot about the weird two player gamepad minigames, i remember playing a few of them once and not really feeling any desire to go back, but they were cute in concept

not a bad way to play magic, i started playing it because i had a group of friends i began to play commander with and i wanted to become a little more familiar with the game. i had a good time with it and i spent a little bit of time trying to get as many free cards that were easily obtainable so that i could start making decks of my own and not have to use the tutorial decks the game gives you. my biggest thing though is that with trying to build my own decks, something about being faced with a wall of digital cards and having to read through them all deterred me from wanting to actually make a deck of my own and i wish it's something i could get over. i had this same problem when i tried out yugioh master duel, it's just something about going through a whole bunch of stuff i can't physically touch while reading it that bores me to death. in the future though i will try harder and make a better effort to actually go through and make some of my own decks in this game, just right now i can't really be bothered

i was gonna go through and try to unlock as much in this game as i could but honestly after having played each track a few times in grand prix i kinda didn't feel all that compelled to keep playing. by no means is it a bad mario kart game but i definitely don't feel the same way as a lot of other people do since many claim this is the best one. i play it every once in a while at a friend's place and it's actually pretty fun when we get a group of 4 together, it's even pretty fun when you're all playing on tilt controls because that's all your friend has. that said i still think id rather be playing some of the other titles over this one. i think a big part of it is just that this game missed me as i was growing up, i never played it until i came to college and just had my expectations set too high before playing it for the first time.

also this is a bit of a side tangent but i wanna acknowledge that the speedrunning and online competitive communities for this game seem really cool, but i feel like in the way people dub this the melee of mario kart (which in all fairness it seems like it is) that also just attracts people calling it the "funky kong flame runner only" game in the way people call melee the "fox only no items final destination" game and it just kinda becomes clear that those people probably have the most surface level knowledge about the game. in reality, it isnt always played like that and it gets annoying sometimes because it enables people to keep making the same lame ass unfunny jokes all the time