This is the type of game that executes a very specific thing so well that you not only want to 100% it, but immediately dive back in on a higher difficulty when you're done. It's also so good that it never once makes you doubt the validity of its proposition of "Twin-Stick shooter, but make it Zelda", it just works so well. I guess the only thing I maybe would've wished for in retrospect were more NPCs and maybe some actual towns and full-on side quests. Nevertheless, I encourage anybody who is even vaguely intrigued by this game's premise to check it out (it's currently on Game Pass)
Looks great, sounds great, plays great. There is a nice variety of scenarios and tones, and the pacing is good for the most part (the factory section went on for a little too long IMO). I also liked the Metroidvania-like aspect of the village where you could frequently go back to previously visited places and unearth new items. The story, on the other hand, is pretty nonsensical (Chris not telling Ethan what is going on from the get-go just makes no sense at all, no matter how you slice it) and Ethan just never gets tired of asking dumb questions, exclaiming "What the-??", or calling people freaks.
Shadows of Rose is a DLC that simply did not need to exist, but I guess they couldn't charge money just for Third-Person mode and Mercenaries, so they threw this asset flip together on a shoestring budget. The story starts off pvaguely uninteresting and only descends into sappy melodrama towards the end. Rose is probably the most sluggish character I've played as in any modern Resi game, which, combined with fast enemies that get you into a very prolonged stunlock animation every time they catch you and a gun that barely does any damage and takes half an eternity between shots, makes for some absolute trash gameplay in the castle section. The house section does have some cool ideas and at least better succeeds at the horror aspect, but, just like the castle, ends with a super weak and annoying boss fight. And then the final boss is also just recycled from the base game. Honestly, I was just hoping for the entire thing to be over soon after the one hour mark or so, but then it went on for another 100 mins, which felt like approximately 5 hours to me. Not recommended, even if you loved the base game (like me).
Peak Resident Evil. The Grace sections are scary AF and true survival horror where you really have to think about how you want to use your limited resources, and the Leon sequences are best-of-class, smooth-as-butter Action horror. The game looks and sounds absolutely fantastic, has great variety and pacing, and even the story and dialogue don't make me want to die of cringe this time (mostly, Grace's stammering was comically overdone), which is much more than I can say about many other Resi games.
Terrible and barely even recognizable as a Resident Evil game. Resi 4 was action-heavy, sure, but that also had a very strong sense of atmosphere as well as situations and enemies that were genuinely terrifying; a lot of variety; iconic locations and characters; and great pacing. Whereas 5 is a monotonous slog with only one gear: All action, all the time. More enemies, more shooting, followed by more enemies and more shooting, and then some more enemies and more shooting. There is no atmosphere, no charm, the plot and characters are dull as hell, and the controls and movement are clunky af, which doesn't even make it a fun action game. Also, for some reason, they though it was a good idea to make a mainline Resi game that is 100% centered around co-op, which means if you wanna play alone you'll have to play with one of the dumbest AI companions of all time and have the constant nuisance of managing inventory across two characters. Did I forget sth? Oh, yeah, the boss fights are garbage, too (you can end up facing the very final boss with little or no ammo and no option to refill it, which is just SO. MUCH. FUN.), and the text files in the library read as if they were written by a sixth-grader. The only thing worse than the main game are the two bonus episodes, which might as well not even exist because they're total and utter nothing burgers.
Fantastic graphics for a PS4 game (even though the framerate and image quality are drawbacks nowadays), great worldbuilding and VA performances, good story, but the actual gameplay ranges from mediocre to god-awful (like e.g. in the stealth segment or the Lycan fights). Controls feel very clunky and sluggish, even going into or keeping up a sprint is way harder than it should be for some reason. Also, there are way too many segments where the game takes away your ability to run altogether and also way too many QTEs. Oh, and the game ends after only six hours or so with tons of unresolved story threads.
Great story and characters with fantastic voice acting. I also like the actual dispatching gameplay, I just sometimes wish there were less luck/randomness to it. Like, if you've just dispatched the two heroes that would've been perfect for the thing that pops up next, that's frustrating, as well as failing the skill check when you've got a percentage of 70. I'd much rather see a simple threshold you need to reach in order to pass instead of this dumb, physics-defying ball bouncing around lol. The writing itself is good for the most part, but they kinda overdid it with all the peepee/tiddy humor IMO, comes across really juvenile sometimes, like a game written by and for 15-year-olds. Also, for whatever reason, the sound mixing can be really, really weak, which robs big action sequences of their impact. And there could've been a little more effort put into the QTEs to make them more varied instead of just the same two over and over again.
The pixel art looks great, there are some fun puzzles, and the narrative is vaguely intriguing. But the music is grating, repetitive, and annoying; the controls feel clunky (especially aiming as well as ledge-grabbing and -jumping); and calling this game a "Metroidvania" is honestly pretty far-fetched. I mean yeah, technically, it is a 2D action platformer where you explore the environment, but the areas are not interconnected in a compelling way, just stacked side by side, and all the backtracking is super tedious because it isn't motivated by typical Metroid moments of finding a new upgrade and going "aaaaah, now I can progress there!", but by the story jerking you back and forth across the map. "Go to the far left of this area, go to the far right of this area" etc etc. Gets very old, very fast, and sometimes it's also totally unclear what the game even wants you to do at all. And that last point also frequently applies to puzzles, enemies, and boss fights. And if you die in a boss fight because you didn't know what to do and press "Retry", guess what? The game makes you sit through all the tedious dialogue in the preceding cutscene every single time for no reason whatsoever, other than to waste your time. Plus, brand-new mechanics sometimes get introduced during the worst possible moments. Like, you'll be in a high-octane chase sequence (that you don't want to fail, because, again, you'd have to click through all the dumb dialogue again) and, all of a sudden, the game thinks now is a perfect time to introduce you to ice mechanics for the very first time where you can neither run or jump in a normal way. Genius game design. Also, the screen is frequently way too busy visually (especially during boss fights) to the point where I often had a hard time even telling where my character was atm.
Cool visuals, great music, delightfully weird setting and story, fantastic vibes, but goddamn are these controls absolute dogs**t. Also, there are WAY too many little ledges everywhere that it's way too easy to run into and shatter your skater, especially since the game not only prioritizes vibey lighting over visual clarity, but also seems to assume that you have three independent set of eyeballs that allow you to simultaneously see where you're going, look at the trick timing meter, AND sometimes read text, as well. I also accidentally broke the game (stood on the side of a wall, fell through the floor etc) more times than I care to remember.
What should have been a 5-hour DLC, stretched beyond imagination to 25+ hours with endless, mindless combat encounters. And the only interesting bits, story-wise, happen at the very end. Basically, this whole thing is you leveling up to lvl80+ again to be able to fight the final boss, because the game has the absolute gall to nerf everybody back down to lvl 25, which feels super frustrating and unnecessary. Some people list the "challenge" here as a positive, but "challenging" in Persona really only means that you'll be chipping away at a giant health bar for half an eternity and not much else.
To describe this game as a letdown would be the understatement of the century. JFC, what the hell even happened here? Eeverything that Metroid fans love about the series is gone: A cleverly interconnected spiderweb of biomes? Replaced by a set of very linear dungeons connected by an empty, boring wasteland of a hub area where you ride around on a slow and clunkily-controlled motorcycle collecting literally hundreds of green crystals. Self-guided exploration with maybe light hints? Replaced with Beyond's version of Navi from OoT calling you up every ten mins to tell you exatly where to go and what to do. A strong sense of isolation, brought about by working your way through an alien planet by yourself? Replaced with a bunch of Marvel characters with the most inane dialogue imagineable who you constantly have to babysit. Add to that a complete nothing burger of an antagonist and you've got yourself the worst Prime game by a country mile. Will not be replaying this, ever. And if this is the best Retro could come up with, then I'm not excited about any of their future output or any upcoming Prime games. There has been some talk about a lot of former 343 devs now working at Retro and that actually makes a lot of sense to me, because this game frequently comes across as if it wants to be Halo and not Metroid. It also gave me strong Halo 4 flashbacks in the sense that it looks and sounds like a Metroid game, but it doesn't feel like one.
C-Tier Zelda clone, stopped playing in the third dungeon because it was so repetitive. Also, having a shared special abilities meter for all your items that regenerates very slowly was super annoying.
A heavily story-focused high-octane 2D platformer? We certainly don't see a lot of those. And Sanabi mostly nails both the narrative and the action, although I did wish for some more visual clarity amongst the gorgeous pixel art in some of the more challenging platforming sections, especially the timed ones. But yeah, the story is great and the ending is a real tear-jerker. Highly recommended.
AMAZING story. It succeeds in both being a great sci-fi tale as well as a deeply intimate exploration of so many complex themes like generational trauma, parenthood, family, moral values, the structure of scoeity, religion etc etc. The presentation could be a lot better (both graphics and some of the voice acting), but since this game was made by total newbies on a shoe-string budget, I don't think it's fair to be overly critical of that. If you have any tolerance for visual novels whatsoever, I implore you to check this out.
Beautiful little game with tons of heart and a very striking art style. It is very much a game in the vein of Journey, Abzu etc, so don't expect a lot of in-depth gameplay. Rather, just go along for the ride and enjoy this strange world Double Fine have built.
Great story, atmosphere, and presentation (graphics, music, voice acting, cut scenes etc), but GODDAMN does the combat in this game s**k a**. I'm not a fan of Soulslike combat to begin with, but even if you are, this isn't a particularly good execution of it. It's just sooooo slow and clunky and the enemies have so many stunlock or grab attacks that drag things out even more and they're spongy AF to boot. And if there are multiple enemies at once? Forget about it. And, if you're fighting in tight quarters, you'll have an additional enemy to worry about, which is the camera. In summary: The combat is just no fun at all. And, bafflingly, the game doubles, triples, and even quadruples down on this most tedious element as it goes on, turning the whole thing into an unbearable slog by your second playthrough. And you NEED a New Game+ and even a New Game++ playthrough in order to get the full story, another baffling decision which compounds with the first one and the nature of the combat to make this game so much less than what it could've been. Also some of the puzzles have the most vague-a** hints to the point of almost being nonsensical. So, in conclusion: Story yay, gameplay nay.
Fantastic game. It takes the best from Journey, ABZU, and The Pathless and mashes it together into an experience that is not just pretty to look at and listen to, but actually feels great and very fluid to play.
The only thing worse than the shooting in this game is the melee combat, and the only thing worse than the melee combat is the "stealth". Puzzles are OK, but overall too similar and pretty simplistic. Some of the voice acting performances are great (Jeremy), while others feel phoned in (Carnby). The story is intriguing at first but never quite manages to pull it all together in a way that is actually digestible for the player. If you finish the game, you will kinda know what happened, but also kinda not, and that doesn't exactly feel satisfying. Also, the finale is so ridiculously lame, suddenly the game turns into some kind of weird cartoon lol, I was laughing my ass off instead of being even the least bit scared. Level design is also pretty bad, there wasn't a single level I was excited to replay on my second playthrough. Also, the two campaigns should've interlocked and been two perspectives on the same events, instead of literally switching out who goes through all these mental scenarios.
Very short, at least one very frustrating escape sequence that fumbles because of the clunky controls, a tacked-on and pretty bare-bones story... The atmosphere is good but Idk man, I really liked the base game but this ain't it, feels pretty superfluous.
There are a lot of things I like about this game, like the awesome music, all the different, distinct, colorful characters, how snappy it generally is and the abundance of QoL features, the combat system... But, good lord, does it move at an absolutely glacial pace and go on for waaaaaaaaaaay toooooooo looooooooooong. There isn't really that much to the plot, so when you try to stretch such a simplistic story over 60+ hours and combine that with the repetitiveness of Tartarus and the few other locations available to you, things really start to drag at a certain point, despite the game trying to keep things somewhat fresh with new party members and gameplay features. Add to that the awesome music totally disappearing during the last in-game month and the color draining from the world and yeah, everything becomes very stale and drab (I know that this is on purpose and plot-related, but it doesn't exactly help when you're already kind of over the game). Also, the style of story presentation really isn't that great most of the time, I would've wished for a lot more cutscenes, whether ingame or animated, because the visal novel style of one character talking at a time through a JPG of their face and a textbox really isn't that engaging. The graphics are also generally quite bland and make you feel like you're playing a PS3 game instead of a PS5/Series X one.
The way people glaze this game to this day astonishes me. IMO, it really does not hold up all that well. Combat and platforming both feel awful and unsatisfying, especially because it is such a giant PITA to actually be able to hit enemies that come at you at even a slightly weird angle, and boy oh boy does this game love flying enemies with weird or even completely unpredictable patterns. And every time they hit you, you get knocked back! Splendid! And whoever thought mapping the special weapon to up+attack was a good idea must have not had too many brain cells to rub together. JUST MAP IT TO A SINGLE BUTTON FFS, you have enough of those on even a PS1 controller to be able to do that. The graphics don't look all that appealing, the music is decent, I guess, and the UI is straight-up horrible. Like, unless you already know the game or have the manual, it will take you a decent amount of time just to figure out which UI element is supposed to symbolize your health. Hint: It's not the number next to the heart, nah, that would be way too logical! The story seems bare-bones to the point of almost being non-existent (I stopped playing after a few hours), getting around the map with Alucard's slow shuffle is no fun, and the layout of the castle will frequently have you wondering where tf you actually need to go in order to progress. For my money, if you want to play an old titan of the genre, go with Super Metroid, it's the far superior game (although it does share some of the same flaws to some degree, but e.g. the controls are not quite as clunky and the music, atmosphere, and world design are a thousand times better).
THIS is supposed to be one of the best Metroidvanias? Nah, man. Color me not impressed. Combat is straight-up awful with most weapons (and why there are so many of them in the first place??), movement often feels super-clunky (ESPECIALLY the grappling hook) and the world design is kinda meh, which also hinders progression and navigation, since your chances of remembering that one obscure hindrance in some forgettable room you visited an hour ago are nigh zero (unless you take to taking real-life notes, which, fun...), so you either play with a guide or have to put up with large stretches of just aimlessly wandering around the map (and getting around isn't exactly enjoyable in this game). The music ranges from pretty great to terrible (Kur theme makes my ears bleed) and the enemies are some of the most annoying I have ever encountered in a Metroidvania. For some godforsaken reason, the dev seems to have an obsession with tiny little dots you can barely aim or differentiate from the background doing tons of damage. In conclusion: This game has some neat ideas, but the execution is lacking in pretty much every aspect.
Prime is an obvious masterpiece, I don't think anything more needs to be said about it. I recently played through Prime 2 and 3 for the first time though as part of this trilogy. Prime 2 IMO is the weakest game of the trilogy, there was just too much backtracking to and from portals and the navigation overall could get very confusing because the wireframe maps really weren't up to the task of handling as much verticality as Prime 2 has. Also, they WAY overdid it with the morph ball segments and bosses, holy s**t. As for Prime 3, I like that they tried sth different with the more cinematic approach, the ship, the different planets. However, not having an interconnected world like in classic Metroid games does kinda ****, as does having to go back to a landing site to be able to go anywhere else, even different sections of the same planet. Also, the motion control bits haven't aged all that well, and some things are drawn out for way too long for no good reason whatsoever, like when you have to use the boost ball 20 times to rotate a platform or sth. Speaking of drawn out: Retro has a boss fight problem. More specifically, the boss fights are almost always too long and too dependent on the player waiting around for the boss to start or stop doing a specific thing in order to be able to attack them. It makes the fights very tedious and also the constant beam shooting in some of them is ridiculous, almost making my finger cramp. I hope Prime 4 improves on some of these points and maybe we'll finally get to see Retro's original Open World vision that they had for Prime 3 before the Wii's puny specs destroyed that dream.
Decent story, but nothing mindblowing. Very limited gameplay with clunky controls. Walking is very slow. Graphics are kinda bad and the framerate ****. Music is awful but that could be on purpose.
I honestly wish I hadn't played this. Presentation is great and I love the swing music on the radio, but good lord are the mechanics and controls terrible. Everything feels so clunky and laggy, even the weapon wheel is slow AF. The shootouts are no fun at all because you have to be ducking behind cover the entire time if you don't want to get killed within three seconds. So you kneel behind a crate, wait for a bad guy to pop out, get up and place a shot (which is hard enough with the garbage aiming and the worst auto aim I have ever experienced in any video game), then get back down so you don't get torn to shreds. Rinse and repeat for minutes at a time. The driving can be fun sometimes (unless you're riding the motorcycle), but wtf are the fences in this game made out of? Titanium? You'll total your car before you break one of them lol. Also, although the game has an interconnected city, there is literally zero Open World stuff at all, you just get shuffled from mission to mission one after the other. The story isn't outright bad and the voice acting is good, but it also doesn't really amount to much in the end. Too many of the missions really don't contribute much to any kind of character development, and Sarah rarely makes an appearance even though she's the love of Tommy's life. Likewise, we never even get to see his daughter until the epilogue despite her being a major motivator for talking to the police. I honestly just keot putting up with the game because I thought the story would have an amazing finale, but nah, very underwhelming.
Do not be fooled by high review scores from people looking at this solely through nostalgia glasses. This is an awful clunkfest **** with very unintuitive puzzle solutions and terrible combat encounters, and it is probably the unfunniest Tim Schafer game with the most boring story. Also very short. Not recommended.
I honestly wish Holllow Knight had never come out, because then not every Metroidvania would feel the need to copy all the Souls elements, like 5000 enemies on every screen with extremely annoying attack patterns that all take way too many hits to kill, or a limited number of healing items you carry with you instead of regular health pickups, or the goddamn bench system that respawns all the enemies and doesn't allow you to edit abilities on the fly. I'm so sick and tired of seeing this s*** in these games. I could see boyond that if there was an easy mode that would make these things less egregious, but there isn't. Hard pass.
This game does not live up to the strength of its own premise IMO. The main story is gripping AF, you'll want to keep playing just to find out what exactly is going on, and the existentialist questions it brings up are fantastic, however, the dialogue can be pretty heavy-handed, leaving little room for subtext and the player's own thoughts. The gameplay can be very clunky, bordering on frustrating sometimes: the "stealth" sequences are straight-up trash IMO because you're never really sure of the rules the AI follows and it's on your a** way too much, and oftentimes the game also just isn't very clear on what it actually wants you to do in order to be able to progress (or you keep missing the one important interactable object). Also, the finale is kind of a letdown since you get rid of the main threat right beforehand, which was a very weird choice pacing-wise. And the protag really has to be the dumbest person "alive", not understanding a very simple principle that gets explained to him over and over again. So if you have two braincells to rub together and have paid attention a little bit, you'll know how the game ends better than he does despite having access to the exact same amount of information lol.
Definitely the weakest game in the MCC. The gunplay is still fun, of course, but you seem to do less damage than ever, the Battle Rifle is gone, there's no dual-wielding anymore, and the city environment you explore for most of the time is pretty bland and boring. It's also weird that the game went back to health packs for some reason, looking around for those when you need them really isn't fun. The missions generally play well, but the story is kinda disappointing and finding out what the "big mystery" is turns out to be pretty underwhelming and also nonsensical. The captain and everybody else would've been ten times better off if she had just told the squad from the get-go what the actual objective of the mission is. And that cheesy romance stuff they forced into the story is really maximum cringe. You also never find out who you actually play as, **** a choice. The game does add some interesting world-building, though, and it's cool to have another perspective on the events in New Mombasa other than that of the Master Chief.
Many of the reviews for this game are absolutely blinded by nostalgia. If you don't have any, because you have never played these games before, they are an absolute clunkfest and very little has been done to modernize them. Yeah, the visuals are cleaned up a bit and you now have dual analog controls, but that's about it. There's no rearranged music (and the original music is very grating), no modifications to the very dated and simplistic gameplay, no redone cutscenes, no map, very few assets have been remade, there aren't even any visual options (not even brightness adjustment!). I know these are not full-on remakes, but you can do much more even in the context of "just" a remaster. However, these titles very much sit at the lower end of the remaster spectrum (with games like Ocarina of Time 3D and Metroid Prime Remastered at the other end).
This is a weird one to rate. Honestly, a lot of the experience is quite boring and the gameplay is kinda trash, but there is a certain coziness to the world and characters, although, sorry, the main character comes across as quite unlikeable for vast stretches of the game. Very, very little actually occurs for like 80% of the game's playtime (which is arguably way too long for what it is), only for there to be some insane tonal whiplash in the final chapter and then everything is over very, very quickly. Which could've been handled a lot better in terms of pacing IMO instead of having an absolutely crazy reveal and its resolution right after each other. Tbh, I thought the supplemental short game Lost Constellation was much better than Night in the Woods itself.
The presentation is beautiful, but both the platforming and combat are VERY limited, and the combat just never really feels good because you only have such a small attack range and your character isn't very mobile. Which is bad, because there is A LOT of combat in this game. Also, developers once and for all need to stop putting enemies in their games that have perfect aim with projectiles, no matter the situation. And another thing, if you put optional collectibles in your game, they actually need to matter somehow and DO something. Like e.g. give you more health because you can die surprisingly quickly in this game. As for the story, Idk, it just didn't hit me in the same way it apparently did many others, maybe because I'm not a parent. In the end, it's just another variation on the old "nature is being corrupted and consumed by this evil force and we need to make everything bloom again" trope. Yawn. Gris was honestly the bolder and more inventive game and it didn't even attempt some half-assed combat system. If you want something that does similar things to Neva with its visuals, music, and story, but is executed a hundred times better with actually satisfying gameplay, go play the Ori games. If you get them both on sale, they're even cheaper than Neva lol
Honestly, I expected much more from this. This is nowhere near as inventive as the first DLC, rather, it is basically just a miniature Control chapter with AWII's gameplay. And I do mean miniature, it is a VERY short experience (that would be even shorter if you subtracted all the typical Control-style document reading). As such, the intriguing story about the Mormonts and the Lake House doesn't really get to breathe properly and there's not much time to properly establish atmosphere, as is usually Remedy's specialty. To what I imagine will be many people's disappointment, this DLC also doesn't really advance Control's or Alan Wake's story in any meaningful way, instead it is more of a "nice-to-know" side story with a small Control 2 teaser thrown in there. It also released with its fair share of bugs, (most of them purely visual, though) and was INCREDIBLY stingy with healing items for some reason, which made the boss fight at the end a very big PITA for me because I came in with such low health that I'd get killed within two hits every time and the game didn't seem intent on spawning more than one healing item at best in the boss arena. I'd like to note that I am using the 5 in its true sense here, meaning "average", not outright bad, but yeah, unfortunately, this didn't live up to the brilliance of the base game for me at all. Maybe Control fans will have a better time with it.
It's a cool idea for a game and flying around the city is generally fun, but my god the controls, handling, and camera could've used A LOT more work, it feels janky AF at times. The combat is especially awful, and yet, that's the part of the gameplay that the game chooses to focus on more and more and more as it goes on. The world seems fascinating, but literally nothing about it and its origins is ever really fully explained. The story meanders about in like five different directions over the game's runtime, but there's no satisfying payoff to any of it. There's also some cringe weeb sh** like maid and schoolgirl outfits for the protagonist who looks like a teenage girl and somehow, has men's approval of her looks as her highest concern in life. Oh, and the side missions (apparently they were originally DLC?) are legit some of the worst content I have ever played in any First-Party game, ever.
An absolute joy to play front-to-back, one of the very few games I have the platinum trophy for. Anybody who is even vaguely interested in 3D platformers needs to get this ASAP. I'm only deducting one point because it is very short (took me 12 hours to 100%) and isn't anywhere near as mechanically intricate as a game like e.g. Mario Odyssey.
This DLC adds a new area where you get nerfed in terms of abilities and health. There are some interesting new platforming mechanics, the platforming is quite challenging overall, and it caps off with a cool boss fight. Definitely worth the very fair price of 5€ if you liked the base game.
Man, is this a huge disappointment. I guess I got hyped up too much by the trailers because of the aesthetic and innovative main concept, but those are actually the only two good things about it. Mechanically, it is very, very shallow: The stealth ****, the platforming ****, the combat is serviceable but boring, and the puzzles are not only incredibly tame in comparison to the insane potential of the storybook mechanic, but the game pretty much solves most of them for you by giving you way too many hints. Which is a problem in general: The game wrestles control away from you every ten feet to berate you with some braindead dialogue or show you a superfluous cutscene **** opening or sth. Combine this with a story that won't exactly have you on the edge of your seat, and I am VERY happy that I did not buy this for the insane price of 30€, but just got to play it via PS+.
Nice, little cozy game with likeable characters and a touching story, but the actual mechanics can be quite clunky. Also, don't make the same mistake as me and buy it on PS5, as both the analog stick and touchpad are very insufficient input methods for painting and I suspect I'd have enjoyed this game a whole lot more if I had been able to play it with a mouse (PC) or touchscreen (Switch).
Impressive presentation and a captivating narrative with mediocre-to-bad gameplay. The combat is GOD AWFUL, Senua feels extremely sluggish (you have to press A like four or five times to even get her to do a dodge roll) and there's just no immediacy or oomph to anything you're doing, it just feels bad and clumsy. On top of that, you fight the same handful of enemy types with the same few attacks over and over again and it's always just a frontal one-on-one until you win, then the next dude "surprises" you from behind. Repeat that 10 times and you've got yourself a Hellblade II combat sequence. I probably don't have to tell you that this gets very old VERY fast. The "puzzles" aren't really anything to write home about, either, you barely have to use your brain to solve them. The pacing of the game also felt a bit off to me, with the cave bit going for WAY too long and the forest sequence feeling very undercooked and inconsequential. All in all, this is kinda disappoiting tbh because I thought Ninja Theory would be meaningfully building on the bones of the first game with the sequel, but the only thing that's improved is the presentation, and pretty graphics will only get you so far.
Charming and funny, but I'm (I think) halfway through rn and the fights are reeeeaaaally starting to drag. The combat system was interesting at first but really, it just makes every encounter take forever because the speed at which your stamina recovers is glacial.
C-tier Metroidvania. The combat is pretty boring and gets quite annoying later on because almost every enemy gets a shield before their actual health bar and you just deal so little damage that you feel totally ineffective. The platforming I liked much better, even though it isn't anything revolutionary, but there aren't that many challenging platforming sections in the game, sadly. Exploration is almost non-existent, the game pretty much always tells you where to go and there aren't really any alternative paths to take. So the whole Metroidvania feeling of getting a powerup and then coming to the conclusion "aaaaah, now I can go THERE" doesn't really exist. Also, the characters just never shut up, I don't think I have ever played a Metroidvania with this much incessant blathering, which outright destroys any chances of any type of deep atmosphere building up. The African cultural influences are cool, but then again, I'm not gonna read through mountains of flavour text to get all of that stuff. In conclusion, this is kind of like a "we have The Lost Crown at home" type situation. If you have thoroughly exhausted the Metroidvania genre, maybe give it a go, I guess. For me, it definitely wasn't good enough for me to keep playing until the end.
This is an absolutely phenomenal surreal puzzle game with a great message to boot. My only criticism is the main mechanic can be a bit janky to get your desired result out of at times.
The Yoyo-based movement is a great idea, but I feel like it could have been executed much, much better. I never feel quite in control of Penny like I effortlessly do with e.g. Mario. Sometimes she fails to grab onto stuff, sometimes my timing is just the tiniest bit off on some move so she doesn't do what I intended, and for the love of god why tf do I have to jump first when I'm riding the Yoyo before I can press X and swing it again?? The game is also fundamentally at odds with itself because it is really designed in a way that encourages you to build and keep momentum and do long combos, but somehow it ALSO wants you to stop and explore and talk to NPCs and do their side quests. These two things are mutually exclusive Penny, you can't have it both ways. It should also be mentioned that the game is ugly AF, on a purely technical level it looks like a 360 game, but it also has one of the ugliest color palettes and main characters I have ever seen in a video game and the menus looks very, very cheap, too. The music could probably best be decribed as annoying drivel. All in all, I feel like this game should've probably launched straight into Game Pass instead of asking for 30€, which is the high end of the Indie pricing range and not justified in this case IMO.
The concept of a playable over-the-top Anime is definitely unique, but it doesn't really make sense to treat a video game as if it's a weekly Anime episode. I don't need a spoilery forecast for the next section I'm about to play in five seconds, just like I don't need mid-episode bumpers. The story is definitely the main focus here and it is quite engaging with very unique worldbuilding, combining Hinduist and Buddhist mythology with science-fiction. The gameplay however, is very, very one-note, both the combat sections and the cutscenes with a plethora of QTEs. Asura feels kinda sluggish in combat, which is a huge detriment against some foes that require quick dodge reflexes (a BLOCK BUTTON would've been nice, you know, like in every other game with melee combat?!), and it is immensely annoying when enemies punish you every time you get too close to them but you HAVE to get close to deal any serious damage/build up your gauge. Honestly, the shoot-em-up sections were probably my favourite part of the game, even though they are just as simplistic, but I was sick and tired of the ground combat and the button-mashing QTEs by the end of the game. Then there's the baffling choice to lock the true ending of the game first behind getting 5 S ranks or playing an ungodly amount of episodes (wtf) and then behind a DLC paywall (even more wtf). So, yeah, good worldbuilding and power-fantasy story, a metric **** ton of QTEs, and very simplistic combat that can get kinda boring or annoying at times, that's Asura's Wrath for you.
Gorgeous presentation and a very interesting setting, but good lord does this game get boring AF after a while and drag on for waaaaaaay too long. There is no gameplay to speak of beyond endless fetch quests that make you run back and forth through the station and travel by tube approximately nine billion times, and the narrative is so utterly milquetoast that it doesn't really manage to do anything interesting with its unique set-up and illustrous cast of characters, which is an absolute shame because there was actually lots of potential there.
