here's where i review things! warning: opinions
i rate games based off of 3 merits: gameplay, vibe, and story.
"gameplay" is obvious: if the game doesnt game, it's not good game.
"vibes" is a little more vague, but this will mostly encompass the art and music of the game, and if they work well together. shocking i know
and finally, "story". a game can have "2/5 vibes" as long as it has a really good story.
my overall rating is just how i feel about the game as a whole
sorted by latest! check back every so often for reviews about whatever
PLAY IT PLAY IT PLAY IT PLAY IT PLAY IT PLAY IT PLAY IT PLAY IT PLAY IT PLAY IT
it's a rougelike dungeon crawler, but pokemon flavored. stop me if you've heard this one before
I don't think the gameplay is too bad, but it certainly gets repetitive after a while, and the game doesn't really add anything to spice things up. i mean it's alright. i've had better at the school cafeteria
my only gripe is that the leveling curve is mildly to stressfully painful. im aware that as the most recent entry in the series (the game is 10 years old as of this year. H e l l.) it's much easier than its predecessors, but it's still not easy by any stretch of the imagination
This game reeks of summer vacation. the story does take place around the end of the school year, and several times it's mentioned that it's really hot (plot reasons. i aint gotta explain s#*^). the graphics are 3d because this is a 3ds game, and im not entirely sure i vibe with it? though it could certainly be worse.
the music is wonderful. and amazing. and awesome(biblical useage).
OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GODOH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GODOH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GODOHMYGODOHMYGODOHMYGOD OH MY GODOHMYGODOHMYGODOHMYGODOHMYGOD
there is only one game that tops this. i haven't played it yet but i will some day
this game got me into writing. if that doesnt convince you, nothing will
this is an odd one to be reviewing for sure, but i liked it enough to 100% it on steam so surely that counts for something
Wow! it's a henry stickman game what do you want me to say about it. literally every youtuber has played these games back in 2016, you dont really need me to tell you what it is
for the rock dwellers, it's a game where you pick an option, see if it fails, and if it does then you move onto the next one. it's a pretty decent gameplay loop, all things considered, even if it's more like you're watching a newground animation then actually playing the game. they did add a whole new game to it though so surely that counts for something
there are QTEs and the collection added a feature where you collect biographies of the various background characters, but there's not really much of a game here. i did enjoy most of my time with it though
as aforementioned, the game is more akin to watching a newgrounds animation than an actual game, but the animation is where it excells. everything's been done over with a fresh coat of paint from the flash games, and the animation is more stellar than ever. also there's like 200 bajillion other video game references, most of which are likely to make you exhale through your nose quickly. the music is also insanely good for a game of this caliber. but overall it's nothing to really write home about? it certainly has vibes but im not the kind of guy for this i think. flash was before my (internet) time.
there's so many stories here that me trying to write them out would result in incoherence and carpal tunnel, so im going to just say that there's a lot of different routes. undertale fans are gonna bust when they see this game lemme tell ya
i will make an exception for one story because i played through it and it wrecked me. rip charles, even though i could just have rewound time your death hit hard. that ending put me into a mourning state for like a week. shout out to the writers you did amazingly at that. "if you can make the reader laugh, you can make them cry".
this game is the sole reason among us took off as hard as it did when 2020 hit, change my mind
overall a really cool game, but im not entirely gung-ho about it. it certainly has a lot of merits, but overall it's not much of a game.
still a cool game tho
wow lois! this is just like the time the Y2K crash killed 5-6 people!
careful sweetie! spoilers!
It's almost like a point and click adventure game. You explore a fake OS with a fake web browser with fake people and fake things on it, and yet i am immersed almost entirely. How is this possible? it's called making a decent game you numbskull
You're an (unpaid) moderator for an online service called "hypnospace". have you ever had that experience of finding something and then accidentally finding yourself 3 hours later with 20 wikipedia tabs open looking up what seed oils are made of? if so, this may be the game for you. there's an insane amount of rabbitholes to get lost in, and even though i technically beat it, i didn't see the half of it before i cheated to get 100% completion because there's no way im going to explore literally every single page legit, who do you think i am
oh yeah the whole "moderator" thing. You're supposed to go around enforcing the C.H.I.M.E rules: Copyright infringement, Harrassment and/or bullying, Illegal content, Malicious software, and Extralegal commerce. basically it boils down to "you go around hitting elementary school teacher's pages with a mallet because they drew mickey mouse and the corps didn't like it". oh yeah and then there's the other 4 things too.
time to talk about the operating system! it's very much a riff on old internet culture and old computers in general: there's tons of viruses, people have no idea how to act on the internet, wiggling your mouse makes the pages load faster, the works. the OS is a very convincing facsimile of an old computer, including updates that break everything! wait we're not in the story section yet
good gravy where do i even begin. the vibes here are imacculate. the music is all essentially midi files(they have a custom sequencer you can use to make your own songs! how crazy is that?!) and the graphics in general have that "computers for the regular joe dont need to be good" look. the sound design in this game is absolutely top tier, i would kill to be that good at making noises. when webpages load they sound like you're wobbling a sheet of metal and i wouldn't have it any other way.
did i mention the entire game fits into one color palette?? yeah they have images and videos from The Real Life and they're all compressed and paletted to high heaven and it Just Works. jay tholen if you're reading this please teach me how you did the sound design for this game. i'll have what he's having, please
the art in general is hilarious. you have the really awkward 3d renders from the late 90s, you have the actually cool stuff drawn by talented people, and it's all just barely cohesive enough to trick you into thinking that squisherz are real and that chowderman really fell off after the helicopter incident
congratulations! you're now an unpaid intern working for a dot com company, merchantsoft, in the late 1990s; where underpaid staff and ego-inflated ceos reign supreme. but you're stuck trying to make kids not bully each other on the crappy and kinda sketchy web browser. the game takes place during 3 times: november 6th, sometime around novemeber 20th, and january 1st, midnight. things predictably go awry on the last one, with A Bad Event Happening. the Bad Event is kinda hilarious until you quickly learn that people died due to it and a child was charged with their deaths Even Though he was innocent(because you fixed the thing that everyone blamed him for right before the Bad Event Happened). rest in peace zane you were taken from my save too soon because i had no idea that my actions had consequences
boom! it's now the modern day and it turns out that your headband was a very convenient backup server because merchantsoft was skeezy and had to cheap out on serverhosting software for some reason. here you get to go back through all 3 times as they were archived and find stuff. im not gonna spoil what happens though, you need to experience that for yourself
very good game. you couldve told me that i would've gotten a page builder and a music synth for free with my purchase and i would've bought it day one
you should play it, it's a very good game. its certainly not for everyone, but if you're gen z and have manufactured nostalgia for a time you didn't exist, this is a great game for you. also you get a free operating system to play with and what's not to like about filling it full of every virus the game has to offer
you know i'm going to have to write about this game knowing full well that friends and family are going to read this and judge me for it
i keep trying to describe it as "ultrakill but an mmo like wow" and people keep failing to understand what i mean by this so i guess i'm going to have to break it down
it's sort of like World of Warcraft, but instead of tapping your number keys and avoiding AoE puddles, you're running around bouncing off of walls like an adhd kid on white bread and sugar whilst trying to hit various guys that are trying to smite you(and often succeed, when you're just starting out). it's a very Mobility-Based game, which can be overwhelming to the average person off the street.
it also has Classes! wow, i cant wait to fight the current final boss with no health or healing items or support from anyone at all because if i show this game to my friends i'll be called a freak!
the art here is very simple, with low polygon counts all around. very much reminds me of something from the dreamcast era, and the music also heavily reflects that; mostly DnB tracks, from what i've been able to gather over the noises of me repeatedly dying over and over to enemies
now we get to the part that i've been putting off writing. the player customization menu is very in-depth. and, uh, the main selling point of the game is the character design(s). if you catch my drift. if you're picking up what i'm putting down.
look, i'm a man, i cant not be the target audience for this game with a slider for Big Naturals. Big honkabazoongas. Boobies. it's actually quite tasteful, though. there's no nudity, it's just all very... suggestive. haha. anyways im going to go into a corner and die of embaressment now
like most early-day MMOs, the story is only there as an excuse for you to do quests. that's not too bad per se, but what's there isn't very... engaging. This is a good case of gameplay before story, and while i do think that it somewhat paid off, if you're going to have quests you should at least build an engaging story for the quests to revolve around. i get that this game is still technically in a beta state, but probably a good thing to consider before the game leaves early access.
personal reasons for buying aside, the game is actually pretty fun when you get the hang of it. this impulse purchase was a good idea, as it provided me with a pretty fun time. what the hell not like that you degen get out of my website
wow ! ninteno
pikmin is certainly one of nintendo's franchises. it's got a really interesting spin on the RTS genre, that being both a time limit and making you play as one of your troops(essentially). unless you're pikmin 2 or 4, because neither of those have the time limit. yeah i don't know why either
i remember booting this game up for the first time and just listening to the piano music on the title screen. those were certainly days of my life that i spent
with the scheduled reminiscing out of the way, howzabout we get into the review?
boil down time! you need to find:
if this looks like a pretty daunting shopping list, it's because it is. you need to go to several different areas, intelligently commanding pikmin soldiers to die for the cause(unless you're doing a no death run for some reason). the pikmin pick up and carry objects around, and it's your job to see that they do it safely. what do you MEAN they brought caves back from the second game
so yeah they brought caves back from the second game! as this has been the first pikmin game i actually beat(not counting pikmin 3 i was like 11), the caves were a new experience in micromanaging my resources i mean pikmin. very interesting and very different, and they even brought back That Cave! for some unknowable reason! pikmin fans will know what i'm talking about
i enjoyed the gameplay, but it's a stressful game. you have to be efficient with how you divvy out pikmin and how they're used, or just throw 500 reds at the problem and hope it sorts itself out. what do you MEAN ITS HIGH TIDE NOW.
this game is beautiful. mostly visually, but the music is nothing to sneeze at either. this game has some of the most goregous graphics i have ever seen on a nintendo switch, and it barely even lags! game freak could learn a thing or two
the music is also very pleasant to listen to. unless it's the night missions. or the boss fights. or That Cave. other than those, it's very nice. can you tell i have no idea how to describe music good
uh oh! captain olimar got stuck on earth again, the unlucky motherf**ker. but he managed to send out a message to the entire rest of the cosmos(??) and the rescue corps is here to help and they also crashlanded on earth you have got to be kidding me
the "story" is alright for what it is. i feel like there was a bit more potential in it somewhere, but i can understand they focused on the other two categories more(and it sure as hell paid off).
i feel like the story is a little too fast for my liking, as well as the fake-out ending. yes they have one of those here. yes pikmin 2 had one as well. yes this is just a sequel to pikmin 2
i personally feel like the story was a bit cookie-cutter, but i suppose that's a me problem. if there's something worse than bad, it's generic
don't let the low story score fool you, just because i didn't think it was stellar doesn't mean i think the rest of the game was brought down by it! this is a wonderful game and is worth picking up if you want eye candy with a heaping helping of anxiety over little min.
ah, terraria, the eternally updated game even though it's stopped development more than 5 times
who hasn't played terraria in this day and age? no, the real question is who hasn't burnt out on terraria in this day and age
terraria is what i'm going to call a "procedurally generated metroidvania with survival crafting and terrain deformation". yes, that's a mouthful, but it's accurate. if your mind is blown by me calling it a metroidvania then hoo boy wait until i tell you about the modding scene
i will preface this by saying that i am currently hella burnt out on terraria. is that a bit unfair and going to show in my review? yes, but i don't care. you're not here for an IGN review, you're hear to see what i say about it
terraria's gameplay loop is simple: gather resources, turn the resources into equipment, fight the boss gatekeeping the next tier of resources, rinse and repeat until you have terraria's progression. it's a circle and circles are Boring.
yeah sure there's other forms of progression, like npc housing, but that's closer to a footnote than actual progression. I liked it when they added npc happiness to encourage you to actually build spread-out towns in the different biomes, but it's closer to a footnote in progression than actual progression.
overall, i feel like it's not really a survival sandbox game, it's a metroidvania. Its progression is fighting bosses which are gatekeeping new abilities and areas. Which is all fine and dandy, but sometimes i want to build pretty buildings and not worry about the eye of chuthulu trying to maul me whilst doing so.
also known as the section where i gush about scott lloyd shelly for 20 minutes without breathing
the music in terraria is an absolute *chef's kiss*. it's very expressive and Out There, very similar to C418's work in that regard. I don't know how to properly express how much i like the music in this section so i'm just gonna list my top terraria songs(as of jan 2025).
as for the pixel art: ehhhh? you don't really notice it much, except for when you're trying to see what weapon is next in your pre-made progression list for your class. like, it's there? it does its job? in this case it's easier to argue that the parts make up the whole, here. overall the game looks pretty alright, if a bit bland in some areas. lookin at you, underground
story? what story? the only story is the friends we made along the way
there's not really a story in terraria. yeah, i know there's "official deep lore", but i'm talking about story progression In The Game, not provided by external means.
this won't impact the game's final score at all, but i figured i should at least acknowledge it.
is it a good game? yes. does it have its flaws? also yes. but the developers are pretty active in the community and know of some of the flaws, so that's a pretty big point in their favor.
i wish i could be more invested in terraria, but i just can't. it's such an immense time sink that i just can't afford anymore, and my backlog is only going to get larger as time goes on.