Board 8 > Post Each Time You Beat a Game: 2022 Edition Part II

(+) Yeah! (+)

Weird West
I like a lot of ideas this game has, and you rarely get fantasy Wild West settings, but the actual gameplay is sort of eh, and the storyline does not really hold up. I figured out way too much way too fast, which leaves the big ending reveals unsatisfying, and the ending itself is a whole lot of nothing. It's not a bad game, but the setting is better than the story it's used for.

Second Thoughts
A bad game. I discovered it on my Steam page and had no memory of buying it.

Arti posted...

well, I did warn you

If I don't play even the bad ones, how can I develop a spectrum for the truly bad ones? It wasn't worth it, but I'd do it again knowing.

Dad Quest (Steam)

What a weird, weird game. You play as a Dad (male or female) who goes on the Dad Quest to collect the all the Dadges and become a Good Dad. You fight by throwing your indestructible Child. I'm not sure if the world-building here is neat or just bizarre but it's certainly something.

It's kind of a Metroidvania but much more of a quest-y one than is typical, so it doesn't really have MV vibes even if it has the gameplay. (No map either. We really need to start bullying devs more for this.) I 100%'d it including all the achievements because I'm an insane person. It's solid and truly, truly strange.

Backbone (XB1)

I'm a little miffed that the game has one file, and it was erased so I had to restart relatively early in the game. That aside, this was a solid adventure game that didn't exactly justify its existence as very little was resolved and basically seemed to be just a stepping stone for a sequel.

Beasts of Maravilla Island (Steam)

I really liked this game! It is honestly just a Pokemon game, right down to having dueling legendaries -- specifically it's a free-roam (still highly linear, just not literally on rails) Pokemon Snap without scoring. Most of the creature designs are good and the environments are beautiful. My biggest issue with this game is that I just want more of it. I knew the game was short and it still surprised me with how short it was (100% in just over 2 hours, including all achievements). Only three areas feels very inadequate as well, especially when the last is kind of half-baked compared to the first two.

Vampire Survivors (PC)

Version 1.0 is now live.
I got all the Achievements.
Also...the game is beaten. For there is indeed an Ending and Credits now due to the 1.0 update so this one actually counts.

This game is awesome.

Vampire Survivors (PC)
What GOG said.

Recompile (XBS/X)

I'm little surprised that I stuck with it. The combat doesn't really need to exist, though I was a fan of the boss battles (it helps that I abused the time slow ability). This game has no business featuring precision platforming, but there was plenty of that. The map is useless, and some of the areas are too big. I still kind of liked it though? It definitely felt unique and I still had fun despite the glaring issues.

The Witch & The 66 Mushrooms (Steam)

Fun little Metroidvania with unique bosses and lots of uses for new powers in previous areas. It worked almost perfectly on my Steam Deck, but two rooms in the last area don't load correctly so I either had to stumble through 99% blind or play on my laptop like a peasant anytime I went through that area. I also had a few glitches where my character got stuck in the wall, which is apparently pretty common. Overall it's a solid game for being made in a simple game-maker though. I got 100% including the final challenge where you have to circumnavigate the game world as a cat, which was frustrating but satisfying to complete.

Pokemon Snap (N64, via Switch Online) [REPLAY]
Did a full playthrough (finished the story AND got all 63 Pokemon) in one stream tonight. Fun game to play through every 10 years or so.

Pokemon Platinum (DS)

Another fun romp through Sinnoh. One of my lesser played regions, although with 1 Diamond playthroughs, 2,5 Platinum playthroughs and 1 Brilliant Diamond playthrough, it's not that much less anymore.

To me, Platinum is still the best Sinnoh experience. Sinnoh in itself is a good region overall. The E4 was tough as expected, that level gap between my team and their teams really became noticeable and they always seemed to have something to cover my team's weaknesses. Some good Pokemon in my team ended up being near useless in the E4 because their typing or stats were exactly wrong there, such as Empoleon being weak to Ground or Houndoom just lacking that bit of speed that's necessary with the level gap. Fortunately, I had Garchomp and Staraptor, plus Luxray for double Intimidate.

Yeah, overall, fun experience. I always notice I enjoy the first half of a pokemon game more than the second, as long as I have Pokemon from my team to evolve it feels like I have something to work towards.

Final E4 team was:
Empoleon L54
Garchomp L53
Gallade L53
Staraptor L52
Houndoom L52
Luxray L51

Tormented Souls (PC)

A nice Silent Hill/Resident Evil throwback if you can ignore the jankiness of it. It does a good job of hiding its limited assets and setting the scene. I even went into this with tank controls. Everything I love about this game is attributed to what I like about classic RE and SH. The puzzles, the characters (or rather the minimalism thereof---there's only 2 for the most of it), the usage of the Inventory to reload your ammo, and even the plot appears to combine both games without making it sound contrived.

It really makes me want to play SH2 which I never honestly beat. I got to the hotel and I gave up. I know right?

A little late
Baby Jesus Christ RPG (PC)
The prequel to the aforementioned J(esus)RPG, and the same gist and tone. Here we see the parallel narratives of Mary & Joseph and the Three Wise Men, which makes it feel a little like Dragon Quest IV. Mary summons the various named angels for buffs and healing, Joseph is melee with carpentry tools, and the eventual baby Jesus isn't capable of much yet but can use items to support the party at least. Meanwhile, the Three Kings are, well, magi, casting the magic of myths and legends from equipped weapons to battle the spirits of foes like Zoroaster and Nimrod. In the end, Herod himself stands in the way of your flight to Egypt, and he's actually pretty tough. It took reaching the level cap and devising a strategy to make it through. Next up, the final chapter: JCRPG: Rising.

Islets (PC)

Mellow metroidvania hack-n-slash in the vein of Hollow Knight but much more relaxed in tone. Even though the things you fight are gruesome and its implied there's something sinister going on, the flow doesn't go beyond becoming a hero and saving the titular islets. It's really more of a hero's journey than anything. The boss fights are fine and I'm sort of glad this one actually has 3 difficulty modes like when have you ever seen that lately in a 2022 game? Not everything has to be a Dark Souls clone, thank god.

What its got going for it is a rather unique take on the map system; you have to unlock each island's capability to merge with the rest of the islands unlocking more content. Upgrades are a roulette but all passive and you can collect up to 60 making for a very broken character if you so wish it. My only complaint I guess is the rather floaty movement. This game emphasizes Hollow Knight combat but more Ori when it comes to movement as seen in the upgrades you acquire. Backtracking is never a hassle because of the fluid motion from screen to screen as well as the ability to teleport around save statues later on. Also probably should mention that 4 of the 17 boss fights are shmups so get ready for some unexpected bullet hell gameplay.

Theres also a bit of artificial difficulty from Hit Thresholds. No matter how much you max your attack, you will still only deal X damage to an enemy or a boss.

Spirit Hunter: NG (Vita)

The second game in the series after Death Mark, this game has a similar premise where the main character is cursed by a spirit and has to defeat other spirits to eventually remove the curse on him. There's plenty of references to the first game as well. My main complaint is that the areas for exploration are extremely small compared to the first game - you could fit the first three levels of this game in the first game's initial level, which is disappointing. In a horror adventure game where investigation and exploration is the main gameplay it comes off as a weaker title overall than its predecessor. Hopefully the next game, Death Mark II, fixes a few of these problems.

NORCO (PC)

The fuck did I just play? I thought this was a Cyberpunk story set in Louisiana. It turned out to be a gothic horror game with cyberpunk elements. The religious subtext took me by surprise and right as that third act rolled around I just knew this was one of those games where the ending is just going to be ambiguous as hell and I was right. So much so did the fans of this game have questions for alot of unresolved plots (mentioned by the devs as being cut for time) that the devs went and made a lore app on their itch io to resolve them. But like, why do that when you could've just worked on your game a bit longer...? This game sorely needs a Director's Cut.

Anyways, the game was great. Certainly unique in its premise, setting, and devices---lots of minigames and interesting mechanics that unfortunately only get used in the segments that they are introduced in. At times the text felt too flowery and overwrought but the research that went into this was proper and from some of the comments made the locations were true and or inspired amazingly.

Werewolf: The Apocalypse Heart of the Forest (PC)

Cool presentation and atmosphere, and at times it had me gripped despite its more subdued nature, but I'd say overall it could have stood to be more interesting. It seemed like a lot of thought and effort was placed into the character systems and stuff, but I'm under the impression that it is mostly fluff for mostly slight writing flavor differences.

Ender LilIes - Quietus of the Knights (PC)

I thought for sure this game was released ages ago. Anyways, it was nice. Everytime I play one of these Soulslikes my heart is wrenched by the story of everyone dead. Not much to say about this one; I guess it was just really hard. There's this criticism about the bosses and spirits being boring but it was fine by me. Reminds me alot of Salt and Sanctuary and they even copied one boss in particular so yeah.

I am Setsuna (PS4)

The game is fine. It takes most of its story interpretation from Final Fantasy X and its battle system from Chrono Trigger, and fails to live up to either of those games for a few reasons. The boring, white background that persists through the entire game is a weird artistic choice that makes the game annoying to traverse, plus the game hides items that are extremely hard to see as shiny spots within the white areas. Secondly, there's really nothing else to do in the game until you get right before the end boss, at that point the first sidequests in the game appear, and by that time you're probably already wanting to get it over with, like I was. Finally, the game is a real old-time RPG with its mechanics, as in there's no HP heal after battles or saving anywhere. And the enemies in the final dungeon really enjoy casting Freeze, which counts as a KO'd party member. I did lose several hours of progress due to this.

Still, it was still mostly an enjoyable experience. I did enjoy linking attacks between my party members and creating fluxations to power up each character. It is definitely not worth the $40 price tag the game asks for, but it goes on sale pretty often.

Dusk Child (PC)

More itch.io backlog. This is a Pico-8 puzzle platformer. It doesn't overstay its welcome at about 30 minutes long but the controls are frustrating so I can't really recommend it.

MindSeize (Steam)

Good sci-fi Metroidvania that, unusually, does not copy Metroid in basically any way. It isn't a true Metroidvania because the whole game world isn't connected, but each planet is pretty large on its own and composed of multiple areas that are interconnected. The weapons are varied and I actually used almost all of them at different points in the game, rather than just sticking to one I liked. The upgrades are pretty well hidden so exploration is very incentivized, and - probably my favorite thing this game does - most of the hidden upgrades are not just more max health or whatever but full on new abilities or improvements to older ones.

This game also kicked my ass, the boss fights especially. You'll start a fight and go "oh, this pattern is tricky but I can deal with it, and my attack chunked off a tenth of the boss' health, everything's peaches and cream" but as the fight goes on, the boss pattern gets subtly faster and more chaotic until there's practically zero room to actually attack between dodges. Your heal takes a full second to activate and even then it only restores health over time, so it's hard to win battles of attrition too. I'm not trying to brag but usually I'm not particularly challenged by 2D games these days. MindSeize definitely brought me back to the days of, like, struggling with the Watcher Knights in Hollow Knight. Unfortunately the final boss is a bit of an anti-climax.

Disc Room (XB1)

I wasn't sure going in if it would be something that I would stick with, but I actually did finish it in basically two sessions. I died about 280 times, and one quarter of that was in a single room (Carnivorous Gatekeeper)

Necronomicon - The Dawning of Darkness (PC)

Another game from Microids. I just can't get enough of that old school 360 point clicking. Much like Dracula, you play as an Investigator putting a stop to the Mythos. Its by the numbers at this point but back then it was probably revolutionary in the storytelling---I was so sure the people you were working with were cultists using you for their own ends especially after you literally kill your best friend who was possessed by the villain of the game about two-thirds into it (with the rest of the game just finding the Ancient Cities and destroying them). But no, they really were your colleagues and there was no double cross. You stop Yoggie, hurray!

Contemporary of the games in this era, the flow was mostly talking to people which kinda bored me halfway in but got intriguing when the "game" finally let me explore and it started turning into Myst especially in the last part with the abstraction and the mazes in first person. Mercifully that part was short and a nice puzzle for a finale.

Persona 4 Golden (Vita)

Four years ago I finished all the new content in Golden except for the extended epilogue, and having played the original Persona 4 already, I was satisfied and put the game down at that point. A combination of both the upcoming release and the current TrueTrophies challenge pushed me to see the ending again, and this time I might actually go and get the platinum.

Maybe.

Vampire: The Masquerade - Shadows of New York (PC)

I had reservations about going from a morphable to a largely fixed character, but I ended up liking Julie a lot. It's the rest that I am iffy on. This ended up being a very linear experience as opposed to Coteries' flexible adventure. I also found it strange that many characters had the same artwork from before while others were completely different (and typically worse imo). I actually liked the core premise, but I feel a little let down by the execution.

Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice (XB1)

I first played this in 2018 or 2019 and dropped it. I picked it back up for Game of the Month Club, and I basically feel the same as I did before: It's okay. I am confused who thought of and approved of its puzzle style.

Resident Evil Village: Shadows of Rose

Somewhat of a disappointment, if we're being honest. It's not terrible, but it's not great, either.

Dragon Quest Heroes: The World Tree's Woe and the Blight Below (PS4)

I first started this game in 2015, played a bit around with it. Got about halfway through the story and then put it aside to play other games, wasn't very impressed with the fusion of action gameplay and Dragon Quest mechanics. Fast forward to this year, and two TrueTrophies challenges, Warboats PvP and Leap Frog finally pushed it all the way to the end. Really enjoyed using Terry who was easily the most overpowered character in the game. Still not sold on it completely, but maybe Dragon Quest Heroes 2 is better?

Kingpin: Life of Crime (PC)

This is a weird game that uses the Quake 2 engine that is apparently a cult classic but it was really just a headache. It straddles the line between oldschool and modern shooter and it had some great ideas going for it. For one, I really love the allies ability to keep up with you for a game made at this time. In addition, enemy pathfinding was precise and they weren't dumb; they will actually run back and forth to try and bait you and won't act dumb most of the time. Its the hitscanning that's ridiculous though.

Lost Ruins (Steam)

What a weird game. It's kind of a Metroidvania, but there are no real movement abilities. It's kind of a Souls-like, but there aren't corpse runs or bonfires. It IS fun, though, if you can get past all the jank. There are certain quirks (like how attacking in the air cancels all your momentum immediately) that you'll just have to get used to, but if you can, the combat ends up being pretty satisfying. There's also an incredible amount of tension to the whole game because save points don't restore your HP or MP -- in fact, there's no way to do so without spending resources or time. It makes the whole game feel like one big endurance run, which is probably not for everyone but is very unique and interesting. It also really highlights the different standards I have for 2D and 3D games, because if a 3D game had these mechanics I'd call it a piece of shit and drop it immediately. But in a 2D game I'm just like, "okay, challenge accepted."

Unfortunately, I don't think it really makes good on its promise to be an extremely difficult survival game. It starts that way: in the beginning, each enemy is a threat, there are a lot of traps, and you'll really have to pay attention and find in-game notes to gather info about situations before just jumping in. But sometime between the first and second boss it just becomes a fairly standard 2D action game. Once you get a strong weapon and equipment that passively heals you, it's pretty much GG. Almost every enemy in the game can be easily dispatched by the same one or two strategies. And by the end I was so overpowered that I could kill the last couple bosses in a few hits each.

The story is pretty whatever. I will give it credit for not being as poorly written as I initially thought, but then the ending kinda makes no sense, so... I dunno, it's just not great. There are also a couple really skeevy little details. The character designs are one thing and generally forgivable, but the permanent upgrades you collect are mostly children's underwear. It's easy enough to ignore but yuck.

SpoinkRulezz posted...

Yeah, overall, fun experience. I always notice I enjoy the first half of a pokemon game more than the second, as long as I have Pokemon from my team to evolve it feels like I have something to work towards.

I've noticed this for myself as well. I generally find that once my Pokmon are fully evolved, I'm ready to take on the E4 and be done with the game.

Lost Planet 3 (Steam)

Lost Planet 3 is a video game. It's okay.

If that sounds like an underwhelming intro...then I agree with you. It's just that Lost Planet 3 is one of those games that doesn't really sit with you. It's not a bad time; there were some frustrating moments, but every time I was done I felt fine. I also never had the feeling of desperately wanting to play more though. It's one of the most middle-grounded gaming experiences I've had.

The game stars Jim Peyton who is headed for E.D.N. III, a frosty planet, to mine for T-Energy to solve the energy crisis back on Earth. While the premise is simple, the story is one of the better parts of the game; there's a few nice surprises along the way, Jim Peyton himself is written quite well, and the plot keeps you engaged with what's happening all throughout. Tonally, the game does feel somewhat odd. The setting and situation at hand would seemingly lead to more serious and desperate situations, but most of the crew that man the home base are kind of goofy and weird. There's Gale, a young guy who's in charge of your machine and is pretty hyper, a crewman constantly on the lookout for the warmest spot in the base, a kooky scientist, a pair of engineers where one only ever mumbles,... The actual plot never turns goofy, but all the writing around it definitely takes a less serious tone.

Gameplay-wise, Lost Planet 3 is a bog-standard third-person shooter. There's a cover system, but it's only relevant in specific encounters; the majority of the enemies you'll face without any cover, and it doesn't feel like a huge loss in those scenarios either. What is not bog-standard in games however, is the Rig.

See, Jim Peyton doesn't mine with a pickaxe. He uses...well, he uses little posts that absorb energy, but to get there, he uses his Rig. The Rig is basically a big, lumbering machine. Think a Gundam if our current engineers had to seriously build one. Yes, the Rig unfortunately is as lame as it sounds. It's clear that the designers wanted the Rig to be a core aspect of the game, but it just doesn't really work. It's very slow; I wouldn't say that you as a person are faster than the Rig, but it certainly feels that way, so every time you're traversing areas it just feels like it takes forever.
This is exacerbated by fights in the Rig. Whenever you encounter normal enemies (the alien Akrid, endemic to the planet), you can try to kill them with your Rig or get out to shoot them. Shooting them is much quicker and easier; it's not that the Rig doesn't do damage, it's just that hitting them when you're so slow is just a major pain in the behind. Once you encounter bigger Akrid however, you'll generally be locked in your Rig, leading to a fight. These fights generally turn into QTE-events; you block a few attacks, then a scene happens where the Rig grabs the pincer/stinger/arm that was attacking it, you hold it up, and then you use your drill or welder to deal damage. You repeat this a few times, and the enemy Akrid dies. None of these encounters are thrilling; they just feel like a chore. These Rig fights also have problems throughout the game; you can pick up parts to improve your Rig, but at the start, you are not very tough, and the chance of the Rig going down are pretty high. Later on, you'll have gotten a few upgrades like a welder or a shock-claw, but these are tied to story progression, so it's very easy to forget you have them, can use them for combat,...or what button they're tied to. I don't have a perfect memory, but it hasn't happened to me before that I've had to check my keyboard config in the penultimate boss fight.

Technically, the game is okay. I enjoyed the snow planet setting; while snow areas generally get boring after a while, I feel the design of E.D.N. III had enough variety to not have me bored throughout. There's also some great sound design when you're navigating Akrid nests, as it sounds very gross, and icky, and intense. The game does a really good job of tensing you up in areas, potential dread around every corner. It's not a horror game, but it takes inspiration from them for some parts, and the sound is a big part of it. I did have to turn off the Rig radio though; country rock only? No thanks.

All in all, if you just want an enjoyable third-person shooter, you could do quite a lot worse than Lost Planet 3! You could, however, also do better.

Sonic 3 + Knuckles (PC)

First time beating this since the early 00s, also for PC on a disc that included Flicky, Sonic R, Shining Force, and other Sega games.

Granblue Fantasy: Versus (PS4)

It's the fighting game based on the gacha RPG that was given out on PS+ Essential a few months ago. It has its own story mode that would probably make more sense if I actually played Granblue Fantasy, but I don't. The story mode uses RPG stats, so it was basically just making numbers going up so you just overpower all the enemies, which is easy enough.

Child of Light
Okay.

Celeste (PS4)

Celeste is fun enough but I very quickly realized that I just don't really like platformers that much. For one, I'm not super good at them, and it just gets frustrating pretty quickly. I think I might just avoid platformers from now on.

BlackDra90n posted...

Celeste (PS4)

Celeste is fun enough but I very quickly realized that I just don't really like platformers that much. For one, I'm not super good at them, and it just gets frustrating pretty quickly. I think I might just avoid platformers from now on.

I mean pixel perfect platformers like Celeste are very different from most platformers. Really think they're an entirely different genre. I, for example, love platformers but didn't really love Celeste because I'm not a fan of those types of platformers!

Legend of Grimrock 2 (PC)

This was a strange experience. This is the first time in a long time that I've wanted to badly replay something I've actually posted in a Post Each. Usually I just one and done everything and find little reason to come back. I think honestly it was the mainly disappointing amount of clones that while are good, do not have that flavor I'm looking for although to be fair I never really looked into the M&M series to get my fix. After finding out the devs of this game have actually changed studios and worked on other things, I decided to relive this piece of nostalgia once again.

But I was hit with the nostalgia bug, strangely. Strangely, this was not the game I remember at all. I don't know if it's because I'm losing my edge or what but this game got significantly harder. I don't even remember if it was patched recently but suddenly I had to focus and theorycraft better and I was so stressed over quickloading all the time. Anyways, the game is still great; I just wish I didn't come back to it because it had nothing for me but a reality check (which I guess was needed).

Needless to say, I intend to come back to this yet again in the future but not for the game. I'm talking about custom content and in the years following this game there have been some pretty devious ones. But now I know I'll have to come back with a better mind than thinking this game was easy because now it's going to be difficult on purpose just like that Blood Fan Expansion I played a few months back.

I also love the score which I never noticed. Title and Credits because the game itself has no music.

Frog Detective 3: Corruption at Cowboy County (PC)

I loved the first one, and while the second was still very good, I found it to be a downgrade in all aspects that mattered to me. I want to replay the original again, but I have to imagine 3 is my favorite of the trilogy.

_Blur_ posted...

I mean pixel perfect platformers like Celeste are very different from most platformers. Really think they're an entirely different genre. I, for example, love platformers but didn't really love Celeste because I'm not a fan of those types of platformers!

What are some examples of non-pixel perfect platformers?

I'm assuming by pixel perfect, they are referring to what I have known them as precision platformers. Series like Super Mario, Spyro, Kirby, and Rayman, while they may have sections of precision platforming, are far more relaxed in their general approach than games like Celeste, VVVVVV, and Dustforce that constantly
demand near perfection with little room for error.

Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night (Aurora Mode)
I've beaten every character's route except Zangetsu's now. Aurora's is fun, but obviously isn't as well-designed as Miriam's (the real route), and she doesn't have as many wacky abilities as Bloodless. What she does have is unlimited flight, but I don't know if that makes up for it. Notably, at the end of the game, it said I only had 88% map completion, so I looked online for a complete map, and it was identical to what I had (or near enough that a glance didn't show any differences), and that combined with a number of glitches I encountered leads me to think it's just a glitch. I would buy Bloodstained 2 if it existed, though.

BlackDra90n posted...

What are some examples of non-pixel perfect platformers?

Yeah almost every platformer ever made. All the ones KCF mentioned as well as Donkey Kong Country, Sonic, Klonoa, Shovel Knight, every Metroidvania like Hollow Knight, Steamdig, Ori, of course the Metroid series. I mean the list is kind of infinite if you want me to keep going and start listing individual games.

Examples of pixel perfect or precision-based platformers are Celeste, VVVVVV, N+, and Super Meatboy.

Just anything that's not precision-based, single screen challenges and instead focuses on larger worlds with much more forgiving reaction times. Those are more my jam.

I really enjoyed Hollow Knight but it was more for the combat and setting rather than the platforming elements, I actually liked those the least. I also don't like Ori.

Dunno, I still think plaformers aren't for me but I'd be willing to give them anoher try.

I forgot to add this in my writeup for Kingpin: Life of Crime (PC) but the most ridiculous thing about this game was that the entire OST for this was just 3 tracks from Cypress Hill. Like, technically it was 6 tracks because there were 3 non-lyrical versions of those tracks that played normally and then for some reason one level had all 3 actual versions of those songs. Like I get how they wanted to market Cypress Hill but seriously just 3 tracks???

School Girl/Zombie Hunter (PS4)

A basic third-person shooter about a bunch of schoolgirls fighting against a horde of zombies that have appeared in their school. It's apparently set in the Oneechanbara universe, as one of the characters from those games also appears in this one. Pretty basic and took around eight hours to finish all the story missions.

Record of Lodoss War -Deedlit in Wonder Labyrinth- (XB1)

I was getting Touhou Luna Nights (which I come to find out was from the same developer) early on, so I nearly quit. I'm glad I stuck with it a little longer because I ended up liking this quite a bit! Some of their combat/support systems are pretty interesting. Of course, I know nothing of the source material, so I didn't really get who these characters were and their roles/relationships, but it wasn't something that mattered.

Environmental Station Alpha (Steam)

Insanely frustrating game. I really wanted to like it, but it does what I've decided is my absolute least favorite thing for a Metroidvania to do: have a bunch of one-way paths making exploring and backtracking an incredible chore. This game absolutely punishes you for wanting to explore, not even by killing you, just by wasting your goddamn time because there's usually nothing to find and no easy way back to where you came from. I ended up just reloading my save a lot rather than doing an incredibly circuitous loop when exploration didn't pay off. Between that and the tough bosses, my Steam time was almost 19 hours but my in-game time was less than 10. Crazy.

The game is also very, very dense and confusing, and not in a fun way, and every guide online is out of date or incomplete so good luck! Especially with the labyrinthine post-game quests. I did most of them and killed the double-secret final boss (very, very cool boss fight -- probably the best in the whole game) but didn't do everything because it's just too much. Incidentally, one of the post-game bosses has absolutely broken hitboxes and damn, it's a good thing I don't have anger issues because if I did I absolutely would have thrown my Steam deck against a wall. I swear, I was stuck on the thing for about 2 hours.

Bayonetta 3 (Switch)
So the multiverse premise has been run into the ground lately, right? Doesn't matter, because when Bayonetta is involved, it's a party.

Hard Reset Redux (PC)

This was great and should've been what Prodeus was. I didn't realize the people who made this were basically the successors to the devs behind Painkiller so I basically played another Painkiller game again. I never would've played this back then because of the shortness of the game but to be honest it was decent. The DLC stuff seamlessly added to this version of the game was weird---its suppose to be a cyberpunk game so the DLC taking place outside of it made the game feel like a generic shooter. Moreover by the time you unlock the necessary gear you need you wont bother looking for the rest unless you're a completionist. A flawed but nice game but only just so.