Awanka

Do yourself a favor, and go back to playing Fortnite and Helldivers. This wild RPG is not for you. Still here? Don't say I didn't warn you. This is the crunchiest of old school RPGs, with many endearing quirks that can be game-ending for those with lesser stamina. The constant switching between 2D and 3D can be daunting. The storyline is actually decent sci-fi of the 80s variety. The planet is inhabited by sentient catpeople. The Na'vi, I mean Iskai, possess a much lower level of technology.

Very inventive game that is marred by frustrating gameplay. Some of the puzzles and bossfights are very tedious especially the final one. The core mechanic of spinning and sliding concentric rings to line up enemies is not fun, and can actually pretty difficult. It's like having to solve a Rubik's cube. The dialog and story are meritricious trash, but that is the norm for Mario games. The final straw was the endless ending cutscenes and long unskippable credits.

Does the minimum to qualify as a blobber. Nothing really interesting here. Combat is dull because the enemies all act the same, just with more hit points and damage. Unsatisfying ending. 8 hours to complete.

What a glowup. I loathed the first KCD1. I found it to be endlessly tedious, with terrible combat, and doing anything in the game requiring an awful minigame.

Short and charming sequel to the first game that improves on the gameplay by adding a deckbuilding element to the turn-based combat. There are a variety of storylines and characters the player cycles throug before the decks can become overpowered and stale. The storyline is still the same incomprehensible mishmash of random settings and pop culture references.

A fairly hardcore blobber that gets a lot of the basics right, but then gets bogged down with obnoxious puzzles, and timed sequences where you die if you hesitate for a moment. It's just quite often a drag entering another room filled with boxes and mirrors that you know you will have to move around like some Rubik's cube.

Melodramatic walking simulator brimming with grrl power. I'm definitely not the target audience, and listening to a bunch of teenage girls is like fingernails on chalkboard. That being said, I appreciate some of the narrative conceits here, and thought they worked well with the flashbacks, by jumping back and forth in time from focusing on objects. If DONT NOD could dial the woke setting down from 11 just a touch they might have a decent game.

This game is seriously charming with good gameplay and a quirky wholesome sense of humor. It's like a cozy Hyperlight Drifter crossed with Hollow Knight. The only knock I have is that it's a bit too casual, although that isn't necessarily a bad thing. Not everything needs to be hardcore.

Mildly endearing game about kids growing up in the 90s. Part walking-simulator interspersed with segments of gameplay where you engage in activities like hit baseballs or skateboard down a hill. The game it most reminds me of "What Remains of Edith Finch," but the narrative is not nearly as engaging. The characters are somewhat melodramatic and pretentious, breaking the fourth wall to present their music tracks, and engaging in overemotional teenage drama. The most interesting part of the story is the streak of magical realism running throughout the game, as the kids fly about and conduct fireworks, but it works for the most part. The people saying this is not a game are being silly. It has more gameplay elements than walking simulators such as "Dear Esther," and even more than "What Remains of Edith Finch," and few people who say those aren't games.

Now here's a JRPG. I can't believe they skipped this Final Fantasy in the initial release and went from 4 to 6. This game is an instant classic, with some great iconic FF moments(Hello Gilgamesh). What sets FF5 apart from FF4 and FF6 is the well-designed difficulty, with some truly challenging optional bosses. I normally dislike the job system, as I believe it facilitates boring grinding, but the implementation isn't too bad here, as it's not really necessary to succeed. My main issue with FF5 is that it's a bit too many anime and cutesy. The story is nothing special with an overlong fruity ending. 36 hours to complete 100%.

A PSA larping as a Silent Hill game. This is essentially a great-looking walking simulator. It makes me wonder what they could have done if they had put in actual story and gameplay.

I'm beginning to believe the developers at DONTNOD do not actually play video games outside of very casual ones. Aphelion displays such a poor understanding of basic gameplay concepts and what makes a game fun; it is a lazy and badly designed mish-mash of awful gameplay meshed with a middling sci-fi story. Half of the game is climbing sections similar to Tomb Raider or Uncharted, but done poorly. The other half are the worst stealth sections I can recall in a game, and I've experienced quite a few. Add to this the poor controls and having to replay sections from the beginning, and you have a recipe for frustration.

A kludgy, artsy, first-person puzzle game that I'm sure is better experienced in VR. The gameplay is a bit like Layers of Fear or Soul Axiom, but slower-paced, and uncompelling. The central storyline is a bit dark, and should be more interesting, but the execution is on the level of indie slop. You can finish the game in an hour if you're good at puzzles.

So this is the Final Fantasy you can blame for the hateful jobs system that has plagued the series with endless grinding. Other than that, it's ok I guess. It doesn't really stand out other than being ambitiously large for its time. I probably would have liked it better if I had played it when it was released.

A decent cyberpunk 2D action adventure with RPG elements that reminded me of Deadlight a bit. It has a good helping of bugs at this time, and the last level had some tedious combat and puzzle sections.

The prologue of this game had me concerned that it was more indie slop, but this turned out be a good RPG with an interesting story, and where your choices matter. Similar to the Witcher series, there was a streak of unfamiliar slavic mythology and grey morality which I found interesting. The weakest part was actually the combat which is repetitive and became face-roll easy after the first third of the game. Gameplay largely consist of wandering around clicking on clues similar to the Sherlock games.

A strange mix of cool aesthetic and frustrating gameplay across multiple genres. At heart, "Brutal Legend" is an action-adventure game, but also an RTS, and a bit of a racing sim. The atmosphere around a fully-realized heavy metal world are pretty great. It's unfortunately bogged down by the obnoxious RTS stage battles, car racing, and endless escort/defense missions. The RTS segment is wretched, poorly designed with bad controls, and I'm sure will make many patient gamers quit. Even though I didn't have much fun in my time with this game, I admire the originality and visuals. If they had stuck to an action adventure RPG in a heavy metal world, I would have given it another point. The metal spider queen is one of the best boss fights I've seen from a presentation perspective. On the plus side I was introduced to a lot of cool music.

A puzzle platformer based on the mechanic of turning into a shadow on the wall, similar to Zelda: A Link between Worlds. The concept is interesting, but it's frustratingly imprecise in execution, and some of the puzzles verge on the obnoxious due to the lack of information. The story was interesting enough to keep me engaged in the outcome.

A pretty good survival horror game with an embedded crafting system. The horror elements are well done, with some outstanding moments and great enemy design. The combat is mostly melee based and a bit messy. The game it reminds me the most of is "The Suffering." What holds it back is the tedious level design in the early levels where corridors look the same and loop back on each other, making it very easy to get lost without a map. I was often wandering around trying to find the next section, as it was not intuitive at all. Everything about this game from the graphics to gameplay is kind of clunky and last gen, like a game that came out a decade ago. The emphasis on crafting everything sometimes feels like an odd fit for such a linear game.

Well, I finally did it. After a decade-long struggle marred with false starts, I finished Neverwinter Nights 2. Without the enhanced edition I don't think I could have done it, so I thank Aspyr. I'm no stranger to bugs. One of my favorite pasttimes is playing CRPGs that came out in the 80s through 90s, so I have a high tolerance for them. I've also played everything that Obsidian has released, so I almost find unfinished games endearing, and the cost of experiencing Obsidian's premier storytelling RPGs. NWN2 when it was released was the buggiest pile of crap I've ever played. To call it alpha would be generous. Even a decade later, after many patches, it was still unplayably buggy. It starts with the horrid AI, which will run your characters in all random directions alerting everything in the dungeon, if you enable it. The enhanced edition has finally got the AI to the point where, although still terrible, you can live with it. The trick is to only turn AI on in safe areas, and to turn it off when things get dicey, so you can micromanage your party. Along with that are heaps of quest bugs, poorly designed combat scenarios, and general UI quirkiness, but those things are more or less bearable. Once you get past the bugs, you'll experience a middling to slightly above average DND rpg. This is basically your standard meat and potatoes fantasy campaign, and easily the worst-written Obsidian game I've played. That's not to say that it is bad. Just disapointingly meh. Despite all that, it still manages to be a decent enough CRPG for those with a well of patience. *Edited* After playing through Mask of the Betrayer, I can finally see what the fuss is about. This is an epic story, and the spiritual sequel to Planescape: Torment, which I believe to be the greatest RPG ever made. The engine is still littered with bugs, but I give MoTB 9/10. Storm of Zehir is a demoralizing expansion, especially from Obsidan which usually puts out bangers for DLC. The overworld map is a horrific experience. I give a few points for trying something new with more open world elements via random encounters and a mercantile empire trading system, but it just doesn't work at all. Do yourself a favor and make your main PC a rogue with high hide/move silent or be forced into many unavoidable random encounters because monsters detect you before you can switch characters. 3/10. Mysteries of Westgate was your standard DnD adventure module with a nice mix of random sidequests made by an indie team. I would give it a 5.

A very deep, long, and challenging old-school RPG. This is essentially an isometric blobber with a gameplay-combat loop similar to Might and Magic or Wizardry. The story is serviceable fantasy fare that reminded me a bit of Pillars of Eternity with the gods powered by souls sent to the afterlife in death. The main issue with the game is that the balance is all over the place, and the beginning areas are brutally oppressively difficult.

I played the original about a decade ago, and this is essentially the same game with improved graphics. It is as simple and addictively fun as it was back then.

An excellent card builder with solid gameplay and a wonderfully weird dream-like aesthetic. I would give it a 9 if there weren't so much talking, as characters yap on with melancholy chatGPT-level writing. This game would have been better if they just used images to show the story, which was fairly mundane in my view.

LN2 is a short engaging adventure puzzle game that improves on the first in every way. The gameplay is similar to Limbo/Inside, and has a visually interesting aesthetic, and fairly dark story that I quite liked. It's also pretty creepy. For something that looks like a Tim Burton cartoon, it has some strong horror elements to it. I absolutely love that these games don't have dialog, and respect the player's time.

A short adventure puzzle game with a mild horror aesthetic similar to Tim Burton's movies. The gameplay reminds me of a 3D Limbo/Inside. The puzzles are intuitive, and there is a good amount of artistry here. I love, love, love that there is no dialog. I hope this trend catches on as I can't stand bloated hack writing.

Galactrix brings addictive match 3 Puzzle Quest gameplay to a sci-fi setting. There are serious gameplay flaws here starting with balance issues, and moving on to the the obnoxious leapgate minigames where you have to match many gems on a timer. I like that they tried to do something different conceptually, but much more QA was needed.

This is the worst Final Fantasy I've played. Not to say that it's bad exactly, but I can't recommend it to anyone other than die-hard fans as the gameplay just isn't there. It's very linear with a good number of dungeons that you can only visit once. The game designers also implemented a skill system that improves by repeatedly using it similar to Elder Scrolls. It's very tedious, and although I appreciate them trying out different things, it just does not work at all. On the plus side it's interesting to see the origins of so many Final Fantasy tropes. Even more than the first game, we see so many iconic monsters like the Behemoth and Iron Giant, characters like Cid, and the storyline of rebels fighting a repressive regime feels familiar.

A quirky walking simulator with a couple puzzles thrown in. These games live or die based on the strength of the story, and this one is ok. The setting is original, and takes place in a fantasy version of a soviet state, populated by supersized animals, strange mechanical contraptions, and giant monolithic soviet structures. In this place, a young nun embarks upon a journey, while grappling with her inner demons over theological quandaries. It's a nice character study, and reminds me of some of Dostoevsky's writing about crime and necessity. If this were a novel, I would say it's decent enough. As a game, it falls somewhat short, as it is lacking in the actual gameplay department.

A charming indie cyberpunk action RPG with anime girls that is more fun than it has any right to be. The wordy story and simplistic action combat keep it from being really good. The story is kind of silly and does not justify this amount of dialog. I also encountered a number of severe graphical bugs during my playtime that made the platforming parts very difficult until I reset the game.

So here I am playing this in the Genesis collection on my Xbox in 2026 and having a blast. It starts out pretty rough with your unprepared character being thrown in an unforgiving dungeon to try to **** enough xp and gold to make it to the next section. The game UI is so clunky and gameplay is so archaic that I was tempted to bounce off the game several times. I'm glad I stuck with it though, because this is actually quite a competent blobber, with a challenging difficulty curve, and some novel story-based progression mechanics for its time. I found it compelling how tough and different the enemies were, and how mini-bosses would have an introductory sequence when they made an appearance. I mean, even now I think it's pretty cool. I would have been blown away if I had played it when it came out. Overall I regret missing this game during the Genesis era, because it's one of the best examples of the dungeon crawler I've played. I can only recommend it to enthusiasts however, as it is rough around the edges, and the endless corridors without a minimap will drive you slowly insane. It's like the bridge between the western Wizardry and Might and Magic series of games and more accessible Japanese dungeon crawlers such as Etrian Odyssey.

A bare-bones blobber in the spirit of Might and Magic that handles the important parts competently enough, but does not excel in any area. As the game progresses the combat balance goes out the window, and the last 1/3 of the game feels like a RNG-fest of big numbers.

The Citizen Sleeper franchise reminds me of Disco Elysium in space. Although the writing isn't on the same level, the gameplay beats with dice rolls is similar. CS2 is a good sequel that improves upon the original in every way, especially in terms of RPG mechanics, allowing you to explore a variety of locations across a stretch of space, and recruit a crew of companions you can take on your Firefly-like journey. There's an element of danger now in the form of contracts, which are essentially missions with tight failure conditions. This has changed the atmosphere of the game from being a fairly cozy adventure in the first game to one with a real sense of urgency. Since this is essentially a visual novel, your enjoyment of the game will largely come down to whether you like the writing itself. It has improved, expanding upon the world-building and various sci-fi concepts, although, like CS1, it's a little too wordy and oversentimental for my taste. I wouldn't call it bad though, and it comes down to personal preference.

The first area of Avowed and 20 hours of the game blew me away. If it had kept that momentum it would have been the best RPG I've played in the past few years, even better than Clair Obscur. As it is, it's not quite the Elder Scrolls killer, although objectively better than those game in most ways, especially combat and basic gameplay. The writing is ok. The gameplay is great. The first person combat engine is the best I've ever seen. Better than dishonored. The sense of exploration and wonder is great. It feels like there is something interesting around every corner. Repetitive enemies. Awful equipment upgrade system based on your current equipment levels. 98 hours for non-evil completionist run.

I have an idea. Let's make a generic RPG, but you also have to argue with your girlfriend about stupid crap like you're in a dating sim. The start of this game is auspicious. Good visuals, ok gameplay, and an interesting setting with a novel alternate history about ghost hunters that reminded me a bit of "The Order: 1886." After finishing it I am much less enthused. This game is frickin verbose. There's an investigative element, so you have to go around collecting clues like Alan Wake 2, and it's just as boring as in that game. As I mentioned, you have to argue with your girlfriend a lot, so there's a lot of cringy arguing mixed with lovey-dovey banter. It must be for a different audience because it made me **** combat has some interesting quirks with shifting your character and banishing, but it gets repetitive fast since you run into the same 5 enemies, and they respawn often. Even fights with trash mobs is unavoidable, and you can't leave the area until they're all dead. This makes backtracking, which already ****, a nightmare, and there truly is a lot of it, since the metroidvania unlockables and various side missions require you revisit the same areas again and again. The save system is horrific, and the game will autosave over your manual saves, which I've never seen before. There is so much amateur hour stuff here in terms of gameplay that could have been avoided if someone asked, "Is this fun?" I can't stress enough how wordy this game is with endless chatGPT level dialog and missions that require you to essentially talk it out. The writers are so eager to force you to listen to their banal and overlong story about a witchhunt. I ended up skipping a lot of scenes towards the end. Oh, and the last level is an absolute slog.

Why are Cthulhu games so uninspired when the source material is so good? Alone in the Dark has bad combat, terrible stealth, frustrating level design, and is buggy to boot. Controlling the characters is so clunky, it feels like a PS2 game. The story is serviceable, but not really scary or that interesting. It's fairly short, although you can play through the game with each of the two characters to double the length. There is a different personal quest for each of them that almost makes it worthwhile. I suggest giving it a pass unless you're a diehard Cthulhu fan.

Excellent remake. It doesn't do the bare minimum such as Demon's Souls, and it doesn't retain a lot of the original's irritating features while barely improving on anything other than the graphics such as Resident Evil 2. Instead it expands and improves upon the original immensely, while retaining the essence of what made it great. It's essentially a whole new game. This is what all remakes should aspire to be.

This original and very addictive take on the rogue-lite genre is like a choose your own adventure game using building modules. The closest thing I can think of is Hand of Fate. It's fun and cozy and packed with secrets and puzzles for the player to discover.

A cozy adventure puzzle game with interesting visuals. The standout here is the art design, which is distinctive and creative similar to a Pixar animated movie. Gameplay-wise it reminds me of the PS2 games like Spyro, although there's virtually no combat to speak of. I personally found it too light to be really engaging, but it's good for what it is.

This horror-puzzle game is quite frustrating and clunky gameplay-wise, but grew on me with its horror elements and distinct aesthetic. The decor here is like the sort of retro-futurism the 70s envisioned, with a claustrophobic maze-like brutalism that reminded me of the game "Observer." The enemy encounters are wretched and obnoxious, but also pretty creepy. The overall effect is interesting from a horror perspective. Basic and essential abilities are poorly explained however, so I would recommend using a guide.

Dumb name for a good RPG. The only SMT game I played was Nocturne, and Metaphor has way more RPG elements than that. This is more like Persona 5 crossed with Final Fantasy 15, with all the social links and world dungeons that need to be cleared by a certain date, but also buying equipment and cooking recipes. It actually comes together pretty well for the most part... but similar to the Persona games, there is way too much talking. Sometimes these guys yap on for half an hour, and it's the typical hackneyed JRPG slop. This game is way too wordy, and the writers are too confident with their trite dialog and melodramatic storylines. You have to endlessly click through dialog about racism between elves, and every character has a tragic backstory you have to listen to. It gets tedious halfway through the game, and becomes unbearable towards the end, especially the neverending epilogue. I had to start skipping scenes because they wouldn't get to the point. There have to be 10 chatGPT lines to select a destination on a map when silence would be better. I give it an 8 for gameplay, but the unceasing boring dialog and unskippable credits brings it down to a 7. This is one game where I wish the developers had less confidence, especially in their writing. This took me 115 hours to complete with almost all the achievements.

A competent adaptation of the W40k space marine experience, only marred by an awful boss fight. The strength here is in the simplicity of the gameplay. The developers didn't come up with elaborate character advancement systems or complicated game mechanics. Just the Astartes using their usual weapons, and doing what they do best, bashing and shooting things to death. It's good fun, and ends just as it starts getting repetitive. 14.5 hours to finish the campaign on hard.

It's not my favorite genre, but Hades is only second to Returnal for rogue-likes. My favorite part is the variety of viable combinations and builds that can be constructed. The gameplay has an excellent flow, and is a delight to play for the first 20 runs or so. Unfortunately, even the best rogue-likes get repetitive, but I do not regret my time with this one.

At first I was having a lot of fun with this action adventure game, and was prepared to give it a 7-8, but it keeps gets worse as time goes on. I like the advancement system in the game, as it is simple and embedded in the gameplay. The combat and stealth system are subpar. The sense of exploration and level design are decent. It's similar to other action RPGs that are based around hub levels. Absolutely awful boss fights including a horrific ending. Quirky annoying design decisions like randomly switching out your costume at certain points in the game. A lot of tedious backtracking similar to a Metroidvania because you don't get maps until much later. It took 60 hours to 100% this game and the Order of Giants DLC.

The combat, world-building, sense of movement and exploration are all top notch. I hate the platforming Super Meat Boy sections. The worst platforming sections in this game are similar to doing a no-hit Dark Souls run. If you float half a centimeter the wrong direction, or wait a quarter of a second too long, you fail the section, and have to do it from the beginning again, and save points are few and far between. There are also many parts of the platforming sections where you don't know what you're supposed to be doing, such as how to actually get that block to fall, or make a jump that seems impossible, and trial and error is heavily punished with a long walk back, reminiscent of Dark Souls 1 having to run back to a boss. It's much worse here though, because there is a strong puzzle element to the gameplay, so it's like having to do all the previous puzzles again when you get one wrong. This is terrible game design. I believe the purest form of gameplay is all intuitive, and Silksong is often not. Horrible environmental puzzles, platforming sections, and obnoxious level design holds this game back. The game is seriously big for a 2D action game. 83.5 hours to finish with 100% completion.

Pretty good old-school RPG, despite being fairly buggy even today. I often had to restart the game because the party was frozen initiating combat, and completely missed out on a section of the game because of a bugged a quest flag. It's a mixed bag of good and bad, but I did have fun. The gameplay itself is difficult and engaging on the highest setting, and the writing is decent, if not award-winning. The combat can be described as X-COM lite, with less game balance and environmental complexity, although there are far more options because of the nature of RPGs.

Pretty good old-school experience. Kind of buggy even after all these years, and unclear in what you're supposed to do to resolve quests. This game isn't that well-known so there's not that much info about it. I had to scour the internet for hidden solutions like a tech-priest. It was very interesting to see how this game was the precursor to Fallout and it is evident, just sub killer robots for supermutants. This is probably one of the first games that had NPC party companions who had a bit of agency. They have special dialog and personal quests, and motivations that might be different from your own.

The classics never die. This charming old-school experience takes me back to my childhood, and playing Ultima and Might and Magic late into the night. It might as well be called Fallout 0 since you can see how it was the prototype for that storied franchise. It's all here, the position-based tactical combat, the wild and whacky post-war setting, and even the epilogue with a montage of how your choices affected the wasteland. I had a great time playing this, even though it is janky as hell by any measure.

I wonder if I would have liked this game a lot more if I had played it when it was released, since I was a fan of "Monkey Island," "LOOM," and other point-and-click adventure games. I say this because after finishing "Full Throttle" in a single day on Sep 4 2025, it's not particularly compelling by today's standards. It has a certain charm, and some novel gameplay mechanics for its time like actual combat on bikes, but pretty much any Wadjet game is miles ahead of "Full Throttle." I can only recommend this if you've played everything else.

I appreciate that the mechanics of this ARPG are simple as opposed to overcomplicated systems like Diablo 4 and Inquisitor:Martyr. The enemies and combat get fairly repetitive however, and the game balance and writing are pretty bad. It's a short game worth a single run if you like the genre, but it's nothing remarkable.

It all feels so generic. There's some decent ARPG gameplay hidden somewhere in here, but you have to wade through so many battlepass lootbox shenanigans to get to them. The part that I find the most troublesome is how complicated it all is. There are endless upgrade systems with gems, mods, familiars, enchantments, and others, all tied together with some grinding mechanic, or with the help of your credit card. I like my action games to be minimalist. You go into dungeons and bash on things. This game offends me. The story is also overcomplicated. You have to click on tons of dialog question marks and follow people around to service the storyline, which isn't really that interesting.