BlueS23

When judged by modern gaming standards outside the Nintendo bubble, Super Mario Odyssey is a highly overrated title that falls short in many areas. The game suffers from a practically nonexistent story, dreadful camera controls, and empty, boring sections within otherwise quite nice-looking worlds. The biggest flaw, however, is the mind-numbing repetition: hunting for hundreds of Power Moons quickly becomes tedious due to repetitive placement formulas, and the constantly recycled bosses represent the absolute pinnacle of developer laziness. The only major saving grace is the brilliant and fun cap-throwing mechanic, which allows you to possess enemies and utilize their specific abilities, but this alone isn't enough to rescue the overall experience.

I love the graphic style and the overall philosophy behind the story. I also really enjoyed the music. The bosses and other enemies were original and diverse. The shell mechanics are great, and the total number of over 60 is impressive, but I still liked one or two and went through the whole game with them. Unfortunately, for me, the weak point was the camera and the inconsistent feel of the controls in combat. Sometimes dodging works and sometimes it doesn't in the same situations. Enemy movement and them getting stuck in textures was also very common.

The clunky controls bring this otherwise great game down. It is not possible to reconfigure anything.

I wasn't very interested in the story, I couldn't build any kind of relationship with most of the characters, and I didn't feel like I was part of the mafia family. The main character you control is bland and uninteresting. The only character I enjoyed was your good friend Joe. A large part of the missions were stolen from the first part, and many things in the story were unclear or illogical. It definitely didn't live up to its potential.

Repetitive gameplay and enemies, a really sloppy system for upgrading and unlocking new weapons that are basically the same, just with more damage. At first glance, it looks like there are a decent number of playable characters, but unfortunately, the variety of their abilities is also quite modest. After completing each world, a new game mode with challenges for that world will open up. It's not very clear to me when the player should complete these challenges, because their difficulty depends more on how much the player's characters have been leveled up. When I tried the first challenge from the first world with the first characters available immediately after these challenges became available. Even though it was supposed to be an "easy" challenge, it was almost impossible to complete. However, when I returned to these challenges after completing the entire main story, the challenges became completely trivial and boring. Not to mention the story, which is basically non-existent. The puzzles filling the space between battles may be annoying to some, I didn't enjoy them much, but they didn't bother me either. What I liked was the combat system, which is very simple and uncomplicated, yet offers many tactical options. This motivates players to get the most out of every action. I liked that you can shoot and move in any order, which is not standard in this game genre. It allows for even more tactical variations. The graphics and overall environment of the game also seemed quite successful.

I was genuinely looking forward to Smalland: Survive the Wilds. The concept of surviving in a world of insects from a miniature perspective is fantastic and a popular theme today, known from a title like Grounded. Unfortunately, my hopes were quickly dashed, and I ended up returning the game with a heavy **** review can be summed up in one word: unfinished. From the very first moment, it felt like a cheap copy. Visually, Smalland simply doesn't hold up. While other games with a similar style might have artistic flair, the graphics here feel **** what disappointed me the most was the absolutely sloppy tutorial. Instead of naturally introducing me to the mechanics, the game threw endless text blocks with instructions about the controls. I don't want to spend tens of minutes reading instructions that the developers could have presented elegantly within the game itself. I feel the creators were just too lazy to properly showcase the mechanics.Furthermore, one of the most discouraging factors is the product's price. The title is sold at a comparable price to Grounded, which is completely incomprehensible to me. For the same money, Grounded offers a completely different league of quality. While Grounded is a polished, refined, and comprehensive title that feels like a professionally executed job, Smalland is full of technical flaws and feels like a cheaper, incomplete copy. The price-to-quality ratio utterly fails here. Having the same price tag as Grounded while offering far less and in worse quality is, in my opinion, a very poor decision by the **** combination of these factors meant I didn't want to give the game a second chance. If you're looking for a high-quality, polished survival experience in a miniature world, go for Grounded instead. Smalland is, unfortunately, just a weak imitation and a great disappointment.

Neo Cab is immediately captivating with its atmospheric world. A visual novel where you, as a cab driver, cruise the neon-drenched streets of a futuristic metropolis, it offers a tempting premise. Unfortunately, it seems that its intriguing potential remains largely **** core gameplay mechanic, which revolves around emotions and their influence on conversations with passengers, sounds great on paper, but in practice, it's more frustrating than fun. Instead of being able to choose how you want to react, the game often forces you to select responses that are completely at odds with your intentions. You're effectively forced to play as an emotionally unstable character, all while having to act as a "pseudo psychologist," trying to guess what the passenger expects from you. The choices are also frequently limited to what the developers consider the "correct" reaction, without offering any real freedom.Other, essentially useless mechanics, like charging your car or staying in hotels, add nothing to the game. They feel like a missed opportunity to make it more than just a visual novel with very limited **** disappointment continues in the narrative. The game tries to be politically and socially conscious, but it does so in a very one-sided, almost black-and-white manner, where there is practically no other viewpoint than the one it presents. This also holds true for the portrayal of male characters, who are often stereotypically unflattering. Instead of a complex world that offers diverse perspectives, we get a simplified vision. For those sensitive to these gender issues, such a portrayal can be more off-putting than thought-provoking.Overall, Neo Cab is a title that entices with its stylish visuals and original concept but, unfortunately, fails in its execution. Players who hoped for a sophisticated and diverse visual novel may feel disappointed. It's a game that tries to be a powerful social commentary, but due to its overly one-sided approach and subpar gameplay mechanics, it ultimately does itself a disservice.