gillibrand

If you like retro games, this is good. Controls are basic: jump, whip, shoot. Think Castlevania, but with better jumping and stairs that work. Graphics are low-res and chunky. Looks better on handheld. Fun challenges, but not super difficult. By default you have limited lives, and there are places where it's easy to blow through them. You can play a casual mode though or turn on infinite lives to ease that. Quite a bit of content for the low price. Main game is 6 or 7 levels, but there are a maybe 5 more in the included "lost sequel" levels. And then 4 more in a Game Boy that looks bad/amazing depending on how old you are. There's also boss rush, and unique challenge levels.

A really creative platformer that's always introducing new and fun challenges throughout the whole game. The world, not enemies, are your biggest obstacle here. This is closer to Celeste than Contra, though there are (very good) bosses to battle. The controls are great, though there is some subtlety to them you need to learn. Like wall jumps are are two-part input: jump, then push away from the wall rapidly. And a dash doesn't count as a jump, so you can dash off cliffs and still jump twice. The music isn't for me and seemed pretty repetitive. There's a big difficulty spike near the end with maybe two or three frustrating parts. Checkpoints are generous, but expect a challenge.

Fast paced and fun. You feel awesome when you do a good run. I'm not much of a speed runner, but the levels are quick, so I happily play them several times until I get a gold or ace trophy. Graphics are plain, but you don't mind when rushing through levels. Music is not my style, and repetitive. Story is whatever, but easily skipped. Though it's actually nice to have a little cool down after a while. So room for improvement in these secondary areas, but the core gameplay is still amazing.

Best PS5 exclusive I've played. Fast, fluid, challenging, and plain fun. Roguelikes aren't my favorite style, but it works well here since there are a lot of permanent unlocks, shortcuts, and a checkpoint eventually. Like Hades, your rebirths are integrated into the story. Only disappointment is that the first bosses are all great, with the 3rd one being over the top amazing. None of the later ones come close.

Loved this. Challenging with good boss fights. Supports lots of different play styles since you can load out with lots of different attacks after awhile: heavy and slow, fast, poison cheese, spider-webs, ranged attacks. And a good amount of content for a cheap game.

This game is just OK, If you're not already a big Souls fan, skip it. PRO - Great graphics. - Shortest load times of any Souls game... by far. CONS - Disconnected world (separate levels). - Mostly forgettable bosses I beat in one or two tries. Tower knight was good. Maneater was a real challenge (but on a damn bridge!). - Grinding money for grass (health). The estus flask system is way better. - Too many friggin' upgrade materials. - *Way* too much of the game is spent on narrow bridges, tight hallways, and staircases. Places where you can barely fight. Frustrating and not fun. Before Maneater there's a red phantom on a huge staircase. No room to roll so you just need to snipe with arrows... every time. Not fun. Seriously, this is like a stair climb simulator at times. Play DS3 instead. It runs great on PS5.

The core game is pretty fun, but it feels a bit simple once you get used to the gimmick. Basically, walk around, hit a dead end, rotate the world a few times until a new platform is visible, go there and repeat. There were a few optical-illusion type puzzles with ladders where the solution is in view, but not obvious until you remember to think in the game's hybrid 3d-2d-physics. Those ones made me smile. I the confusing 3d map, which you spend a lot of time in since you need backtrack quite a bit. You can get the minimum number of cubes to pass the game pretty easily. There are a lot more "challenge" cubes to find still, but many of them are a little too tedious. Often requiring getting real-world pen and paper to decipher the in-game writing system. I wish there were more medium-difficulty puzzles to add more challenge without becoming the chore of the harder cubes.

Really fun. The levels are a little uninspired, though do get a more interesting later on. The normal enemies could also use more variety. It's the boss battles that are the star for me. There are a lot and they're really varied. They're a good difficulty too--they take practice, but aren't frustrating. I played on Hard difficulty, since Normal was going by too fast. I think that was right. That gives you 3 health bars instead of 5, and means you can't just spray and pray your way through tough spots.

I got pretty far into this game and ended up getting bored with it. New enemies and weapons are introduced over time, but they all feel pretty similar. This game isn't super hard, but the hard parts end up feeling tedious and frustrating rather than fun (mostly barrel heavy levels). The fixed camera angle makes some of the jumps harder than they should be. The camera is also pulled too far out a lot of the time. Your character looks tiny and is hard to make out from gangs of enemies sometimes. The worst part is the performance on the Switch. Levels take forever to load even if they don't appear that large or complicated. The framerate feels low and inconsistent. This is the kind of game that demands to be buttery smooth and responsive. It isn't.

Really fun game. Stays fresh the whole time with varied level design, lots of distinct enemies, and frequent boss and mini-boss fights. It's hard, but save points are frequent, so you can think of it as a series of mini-challenges. My biggest complaint is it's a bit hard to duck. You need to hold straight down. I found myself "leaning into" a couch too much and standing up when I didn't mean to. A dumb complaint, but this bit me quite a few times. It's also a little cheap that some bosses explode and can kill you even after they're dead, but the battles are fun so I didn't mind too much.

Incredibly fun. The mechs are varied and inventive. Blasting off their armored parts and bashing their "cores" feels good--like you're really damaging these giant things. Being able to climb the mechs Shadow of Colossus-style is what really makes you feel like a boss. Good difficulty. Hard, but not rage-inducing. (Well, the snake boss is frustrating near the end.) Minor complaints: repetitive, forgettable music; ugly hub world; difficulty ramp-up was a little uneven (some later bosses were easier than earlier ones).