Metaphor: ReFantazio

• Genre: RPG
• Spoiler Free Review: No story spoilers, mechanical spoilers and minor spoilery screenshots.
• Time Played: 133 Hours
• Too Short/Long: It's not too long necessarily, it just took me way too long. It can probably be wrapped up dozens of hours quicker, but I did everything and fretted over everything I did.
• Soundtrack: For a game in which the universe roots itself in music, the music is just good. It really fits the mood, and style of the game, but I won't be listening to it regularly besides a track or two.
• Pleased/Disappointed: I'm very pleased with this, while I'm not sure it makes the favorite games list, it comes close, and was thoroughly enjoyable.
• Why I played: I liked most of Atlus' games, but I'm tired of the school setting and calendars, which is why I liked Soul Hackers 2 so much. This dropped one of them at least. I wasn't too interested in "generic fantasy" at first, but it seemed to ooze style.
• Did I cry: Choked up a few times here and there a little bit, but it got watery eyed toward the end.
• Recommend to others: I really would recommend Metaphor to everyone, but especially those who like "modern"(as in the past twenty years) Atlus games at all. This is the best of them, by far.

First to address the new sections above. I meant to add them to the template during either FFXV or Visions of Mana and forgot both times. It wasn't as important for the others. But I figured the spoiler note is important, because occasionally more than just my wife reads these and I have as many as 4 whole unique visitors. Soundtrack is more of a reference for, is it worth listening to outside of the game? I think to a degree all soundtracks are, but some have some real bangers and are worth going out of the way for. Did I cry? I can get pretty emotional during a good story. Or just a really well set up moment in an otherwise bad one. I just thought it would be fun to keep track of. Most long story games will at least choke me up. But I probably didn't cry for Flamefrit or Metal Slug. Now on to the main course.

There is so much to say about this game. It was really great, and exceeded my expectations. The story has it's ups and downs, but when it's down its only in the sense of "I get it, I'm along for the ride" rather than downright bad, and when it's up, it's really up.

Divine Dynamo Flamefrit

• Genre: Action
• Time Played: 2 Hours
• Too Short/Long: Fine for what it is. It's a little clunky so much longer and it would have worn out it's welcome. If it was smoother, then I would have wanted more.
• Pleased/Disappointed: I'm happy it exists.
• Why I played: Why wouldn't I play? I pretty much play anything Inti-Creates makes, but this little throwback was practically made for me.
• Recommend to others: Not really going to recommend this one. It's a bit short, a bit rough around the ages. 

Divine Dynamo Flamefrit was announced(?) as an April Fools joke, and the joke was it is real. I believe it was a semi-promotional stunrt for Card-en-Ciel, I saw something about it coming with preorders, which in hindsight, I should have gotten, because I do plan to get Card-en-Ciel.

But it's not much more than that. It's a fun little love letter to some SNES and more specifically GBA style action games and mecha, specifically Super Robot media in general. All things I like, so I really appreciated it, but it's also clear it's just a little bonus. It's not a full game in it's own. It only took my 2 hours because 2 of the boss battles were really difficult and I had to replay them a dozen or so times each. If you're better at game than me, it might only take you a little more than an hour to blow through it. 

It's a pretty cute little game, and maybe now when I go to play Card-en-Ciel, I'll have more an attachment to the references to this, or have context for something I wouldn't have otherwise.

Metal Slug Attack Reloaded

• Genre: Tower Defense
• Time Played: 60+ Hours, Semi-Passively(who knows what the active time is)
• Too Short/Long: It was entertaining to me for the right amount of time. Just as I was growing bored I manage to finish the story mode. 
• Pleased/Disappointed: It's fine, it was nice to have some Metal Slug fan service but I knew what I was getting into.
• Why I played: Metal Slug Tactics just came out, and though I'm excited for that, this went on sale at the time. Also, I really really appreciate devs making their highly monetized gacha games available for a single purchase after they delist their mobile game.
• Recommend to others: Not really. It's a mobile game's single-purchase adaption. It's good for that, but I'd only recommend it to people who explicitly like Metal Slug and gacha games.

It was a fun distraction and something to have running while I was more focused on something else. It scratched an itch, since I dropped mobile games a few years ago.

I really wish more developers would release one-time purchase versions of their mobile games when they decide to shut down the servers and no longer support the game. Mega Man X Dive did it, Metal Slug Attack now too. There are probably other games that have that I just didn't care as much about it, but it's a really good thing. It's a shame the content of so many mobile games will be permanently lost to time. While they are usually greedy monetized to hell wastes of time, often even the worst have something redeemable, if not only some unique art, music, or assets. Sure a lot of that type of content might make it's way on the internet in a ripped format, but seeing it all together and experiencing it in motion is what made that game a game.

For Metal Slug Attack Reloaded specifically, it was just a tower defense game that has you grind out items to keep you playing and probably eventually cave to roll for new characters. Since this version contains no micro-transactions, it removed some of the features of inconvenience. It's still a timesink, and most of the game will be played just managing your squads, going through the upgrade motions, and then autoplaying, but it can be a fun hit of dopamine to see numbers go up, blow through previously unbeatable forces, and what the screen descend into madness of just dozens of sprites and effects.

Visions of Mana

• Genre: Action RPG
• Time Played: 66 Hours
• Too Short/Long: A little longer than it needs to be because of the side quests. I kept playing them because I was still having fun, but maybe I should have cut some out and went straight for the main story.
• Pleased/Disappointed: I liked it a lot, it was a lot of fun. I was hoping for a bit more, but I'm not disappointed.
• Why I played: Despite remakes and rereleases, we haven't received an actual new Mana series game for 17 years. Which feels crazy to think about. I was just real hyped about it after seeing it in action.
• Recommend to others: This is a tough one, because I liked it, it was fun, but it's not exactly something I would go out of my way to recommend. If you're looking into an RPG because of it's compelling story, narrative, characters, I don't know what I'd say, but I'd recommend it to people who are on the fence and just want a fun game.

While playing Visions of Mana, I said something like "The only thing this game has got going for it, is it's fun." Similarly, I feel like "If this game wasn't fun, it would suck".

It's not a bad game by any stretch, it's just... on par with every Mana game. I feel like the Mana series gets some undue recognition. Almost all the Mana games are fun to play, but they're all flawed. Even Secret of Mana and Trials of Mana (Seiken Densetsu 3), are rather acclaimed, or were closer to their time, and even then I feel like there were better examples of similar rpgs that don't see quite as much recognition due to their lack of Final Fantasy ties. Even Legend of Mana, my personal favorite of the series is an exceptionally flawed game. Fun to play, but flawed.

That's okay though. If you ask me what'd I'd change about this game, there wouldn't be much. A few nitpicks here and there about navigating the UI, both in and out of combat. Some jankiness experiences while traveling the world. Some choices that make for some annoying time wasting rather then the smoothest experience. Nothing that really kills the game stand alone. Not even combined. But combined does have a bit of an overall impact.

Ex-Wishlist Games

There are too many games to play them all.

This is more of a post about games I won't beat just because I wanted an outlet for my thoughts and it was too big for discord. It also gives me a nice place to come back to, to maybe revise in the future.

Back in ye old days, I had a certain pride of being someone who pretty much tried every game worth trying. A feat that was much more possible in the 00's and prior.

Like with other media; tv shows, anime, music, movies, youtube videos. There are just so many more games now. Within my friend group, we often cite anime, simply because it's somewhat unique in the sense that while there is so much more of it being produced, ~4x as much, but there aren't 4x the studios, and some of them have barely grown. So the quality suffers as they pump so many more of them out in the same amount of time. Other forms of media don't suffer as much in that regard, but have their own problems, such as being subject to to shifts in how people consume media, giant corporations whims, or slaves to the algorithms.

Video games just weren't as mainstream 20+ years ago, and now that they are at the forefront of entertainment media, the tools to make them have expanded to the point they can be produced at every level. There are dozens of video games being released every single day. Maybe not a dozen on Switch, maybe not a dozen on PS5. But across all platforms, if you are including ultra independent works, shovelware, and mobile games, we are just saturated with video game releases. Games released on Steam alone hit above a dozen on slow day, daily.

As someone who used to be very online in my younger years, almost always having some sort of opinion about every game, I've continued trying to keep up with as many games as I possibly can. Putting more focus these past few years into actually finishing the games I play, I finally have to come to terms with the fact I can't play everything. It's at the point where, even if I came upon infinite money, could quit my job, quit all other hobbies, devote every moment of my life to playing video games, I can't even play everything I have interest in playing.

My Steam wishlist has nearly 1000 games on it, and I already own over well over 1000 games on Steam, if not closer to 2k. Steam is far from the only platform I own games on, on PC.

My Switch wishlist seemingly randomly prevented me from adding games to it at 391 games. It didn't let me add that 392nd game. Seems like a arbitrary point, but that's fine. I thoughtfully considered how much I needed to add that 392nd game, and turns out I didn't. I just wanted to add it so I didn't forget it. It's a game I have the vaguest interest in because it has cute sprite art, and I MIGHT play it if it goes on sale for at least 50% off and has great reviews. That said, I knew there were going to be other games I want to add to my wishlist soon, and so begun a mass exodus.

I went through and spent time watching trailers for games, reading reviews, and considering what the odds I would play a game even if I purchased it, for hundreds of games. In the end, I reduced my Switch wishlist to 269. It would have been lower... if I didn't add 4 games in the process. Maybe I didn't entirely learn my lesson, but I made a step forward. A lot of these games seem like they might be great games. I just had to consider, will I ever prioritize them over everything else in my never ending infinite backlog?

No, I don't think I will.

There are a few reasons my wishlist is still quite so high, obviously I like games a lot and there are still many titles I'm interested in, but I also have a refusal to remove shoot 'em ups that I don't already own on another platform from it. I wouldn't be surprised if over 100 of those titles are shmups alone. I love my shmups, and the Switch has a hell of a library in that regard, brand new ones, rereleases, and tons of previously arcade-exlusives, but because I already have so many options for shmups, I almost exclusively buy them on sale, when I know I'm going to play them soon.

Another category that takes up a couple dozen of those wishlist items is music game dlc. Music games are an extremely monetized genre, usually coming with a few dozen tracks and then releasing songs via track or pack incrementally for years to come making it very easy to spend hundreds of dollars on a single game if you're not careful. So a lot of these tracks or track packs sit in my wishlist waiting for a day when they're both on sale and I'm in the mood to play said music game.

That said, I still have that fear of missing out on certain titles, fear of forgetting they exist, fear that maybe I made the wrong choice in removing them from my wishlist. So I logged every game I removed from my wishlist I was worried about potentially forgetting. I didn't include games I already down that would have been a repurchase or an updated rerelease, or direct sequels to games that would be easily remembered, or games that are just too mainstream to forget.

Maybe I also logged them so I could present it, and if anyone feels like I made a bad move, can say, "hey, I saw X on your list, actually you should really play this." Maybe I'm saying all this just to justify this backup wishlist. Eh... baby steps. (but seriously let me know if you think I'm dropping a banger)

Final Fantasy XV

• Genre: RPG
• Time Played: 77 Hours
• Too Short/Long: I think because of how the game progresses, it's somehow both too short and too long. Main Story is too short, extra content in the earlier part of the game is too long?
• Pleased/Disappointed: I really enjoyed it, and would put it in the upper half of rankings for Final Fantasy games.
• Why I played: I don't feel like I need a reason for a Final Fantasy game, but I recently picked it back up, wanting to actually finish more of my unfinished games.
• Recommend to others: I would, generally speaking, but I feel like most people who would actually have any vested interested in it have already played it or already plan to. I might be willing to try to convince people who didn't give the game a fair enough shot.

Final Fantasy 15 is a mess of a game. A game that started off as a spin-off and took so long to develop, several other Final Fantasy games - main line - spin offs - and sequels to the one it was supposed to be a sequel to, started and finished development within it's cycle. I'm sure there are a number of other games out there that start off as spin-off but become their own thing, but it's notable when it happens. There are probably more examples of the opposite - you know, needing to attach an existing IP to something, to get the attention. The game had to insert blatant advertisements for existing companies, to sponsor it's development. It had weird cross-overs that I'm not sure were wholly in earnest and not just another way to get a few extra bucks.

I mean, it might have helped if they didn't try to make this a whole multi-media project from the start. I think they thought this would be the new FF7. They were gonna have movies, ova's, spin off titles, etc, etc, from the start. And they did. But not because of the legacy the game left, like in FF7's case. They kicked it all off from the start, assured that this next Final Fantasy game would be so beloved the cash would never stop flowing.

Instead, you get a divisive mess of a game and franchise that's all over the place. Regardless, I don't think it all turned out too bad.

Final Fantasy XIII

• Genre: RPG
• Time Played: 60 Hours
• Too Short/Long: There are parts that drag on, both in the beginning, at at the end, so for that, I'd say it's probably too long. It should maybe be closer to the 40 hour mark.
• Pleased/Disappointed: It's not perfect but I'm pleased with it overall.
• Why I played: I've been meaning to finish XIII for a long time. I've started the game new three times since it was released, and this last playthrough I started 4 years ago. Once we moved I only managed to pick it up for a brief hour-two each year since then.
• Recommend to others: I actually do, I like Final Fantasy XIII a lot. It's in my upper half of Final Fantasy games. My first two false starts were 15-30 hours each, so I've played this one quite a bit.

I started Final Fantasy XIII before I moved. I also started it before I officially began keeping track of the games I complete, as a means of self-regulated accountability. I've only used this blog for the better part of two years, but I've been keeping some kind of record since 2020. In fact, this game was probably one of the ones I originally considered when taking this on. That said, for year 1-2 I didn't do a full write up, I merely logged the game down in a "Beaten" list.

Sclash

• Genre: Fighting
• Time Played: ~2 Hours
• Too Short/Long: It's a bit on the short side, it's only 2 because I played around a bunch with some regular matches, but it's nice that it has a little story.
• Pleased/Disappointed: Regular. I'm not disappointed, but I'm not exactly wowed.
• Why I played: It's a fighting game and it has a nice art style.
• Recommend to others: Not like a strong recommend, and I'd have to play some actual two player before I can really know, but there are better options for this style of game.

I almost forgot to write about this one. I finished this before Moon.

There has been a trend "lately"(as in... for a good handful of years) of fighting games that try to capture the magic of the famous single strike stand samurai stand off not much seen for nearly 30 years in Bushido Blade. Slice Dice and Rice, One Strike,  Kiai Resonance, Blind Blades, you can argue Samurai Gunn to a degree, and there are a couple other non-Samurai single strike fighting games. This is another one, and it doesn't do much to set itself apart. It does have some great art, which I would say is the biggest thing. A lot of the others, while stylized, I wouldn't exactly say have great art.

It also has a story mode, with actual scenes and dialog and such, which can probably be completed in less than an hour, and then some additional ways to approach said story mode and other single player options, which is nice since most of the other games like this literally only have their standard vs mode. I can't say it's the best of the bunch, but I also haven't actually played it multiplayer yet, but considering there are only 5 characters and I've had a good amount of time to play with the mechanics, I don't think I'm going to suddenly be surprised by it's greatness. It's neat though, and I like the option to play a few rounds of this when it comes up in the future.

Doll Explorer

• Genre: Strategy/Puzzle
• Time Played: ~15 Hours?
• Too Short/Long: Long enough for the content it has, it was starting to get a little stale. I wouldn't mind seeing it as a bigger game though, with more options and customization.
• Pleased/Disappointed: Pleased, I like these games.
• Why I played: I played Witch Explorer, the developers previous game, which I really liked.
• Recommend to others: I'm not entirely sure I would. There are probably better dungeon-crawl strategic games in the form of rogue-likes with customizable decks of moves or something.

Doll Explorer is a cute game, it's a sequel to Witch Explorer, which I really enjoyed, if I recall. Witch Explorer being a little bit more up my alley, as a Tower Defense Shmup. I'm not sure if this falls into more of a strategy game or more of a puzzle game, but the main gameplay consists of placing little cards in a queue, then executing your move. You'll perform those action in order, and some have special combos. You want to prevent getting hit, but also escape the poison fog creeping up from behind.

It does a good job of balancing all the working parts and making you think about your moves, and can feel pretty rewarding when you really nail each aspect of it. It's not perfect, but it's a pretty fun little game, and has cute art.

Moon: Remix Rpg Adventure

• Genre: Adventure
• Time Played: ~20Hours?
• Too Short/Long: It's a pretty solid length, but there are times where it feels like you are wasting time, or at least I did, because I didn't know what to do.
• Pleased/Disappointed: Pleased.
• Why I played: Moon is a game that has come up a bunch throughout the years in the space of "weird japan only games" and then it was released in the US officially in 2020. It's something I've always been interested in playing.
• Recommend to others: I may just recommend it to people who like weird old games or adventures games with rpg tropes, but with the warning it can be quite obtuse.

Moon somehow managed to invoke a strong feeling of nostalgia for me, despite never playing it. There were so many instances I felt like "I've seen this exact thing", I've read this, I've done this, and heck, maybe I have. Moon has been covered by a lot of random sources on the internet as an example of a weird Japanese game that exists out there, somewhere. Pretty much all of Love-de-lic games have at some point or another. But it wasn't just that, I almost find it hard to believe it's a game that was only localized recently because the writing just so perfectly captures the era of when it came out, 25+ years ago.

Moon specifically focuses itself around rpg tropes and within it exists the meta of you being the player accessing the game world. From the perspective of it's citizens, you are a spirit inhabiting the clothes of a you that used to exist, but died, in the game's world. But the theme of the game is love, and instead of going around slaying monsters, you help out the monsters slain by the would-be-hero. You also do other stuff that would be akin to sidequests in an actual RPG and play mini-games. It's like an RPG, except it's just a walk-around point and click style adventure game. You have no stats or progression beyond your health, which is just a timer for how long you're allowed to do stuff without dying.

You just have to make sure to get back to bed in time to not die. It's a cute game, even if some of it's puzzles and what you're supposed to be doing at certain times are obtuse. I got frustrated on one part for like 3 hours and almost gave the game up. I even tried looking it up online but nothing helped at all. There aren't exactly the best resources for this game, despite how much I may have read about it in the past.

Time Crisis

• Genre: Rail Shooter
• Time Played: <1 Hour
• Partner: Brooke
• Too Short/Long: It's fine for an arcade game. I would likely be a little disappointed if I had a home version. Then again, I would have gotten more play out of it if I wasn't playing with unlimited continues.
• Pleased/Disappointed: It's fine. Pretty standard light gun shooting game.
• Why I played: We were at an Arcade for Brooke's birthday.
• Recommend to others: If you're looking for something to play in an arcade, sure, but not to like, buy, specifically for this.

I'm writing about this way late because I realize I had a draft of it sitting on blogger that was never published. Maybe I debated on including it or not for whatever misc reason but now I'm deciding to, we rolled credits... and the draft sitting here on the back end is annoying me.

There isn't much to say about Time Crisis, it's a fun romp of a rail shooter, if a little short and imperfect. Later Time Crisis are entirely improvements. It's made for arcade though, so what can you expect.

In Stars and Time

• Genre: RPG
• Time Played: ~25 Hours? Not entirely sure, it's one of those games that keep the timer runner when the game is in sleep mode, so according to it, like 80+ hours.
• Too Short/Long: Even using the smaller number, it's way too long, for what it is and for what it overs, a lot of that time is spend revisiting the same areas, reading the same dialog.
• Pleased/Disappointed: Disappointed.
• Why I played: Because it seemed neat, had a good trailer, overwhelmingly positive steam reviews.
• Recommend to others: I wouldn't really recommend this one.

In Stars and Time captured me with a snappy trailer that showed some cool art and entertaining dialog. I like time loop stuff, generally speaking, but I know when it comes to games I can grow weary of playing the same stuff over and over, so it's a bit of a balancing act, but some of my favorite games are time-loop based and require you to redo stuff over and over(Nier, ZeroRanger, Void Stranger, Astlibra, Outer Wilds), and it's probably fair to say the most of those can have a level of tedium to them. In Stars and Time is just not rewarding enough to warrant the level of tedium is has.

Xenoblade Chronicles 3: Future Redeemed

• Genre: RPG
• Time Played: 27 Hours
• Too Short/Long: Just right, having just come off the last one.
• Pleased/Disappointed: I'm very pleased with this, it has almost everything I would have wanted in the main game.
• Why I played: Because I just finished Xenoblade Chronicles 3.
• Recommend to others: I would far sooner recommend people play this than the main game if it were at all possible to understand anything without pretty much having played every Xenoblade Chronicles game.

From start to finish Future Redeemed was a joy to play. I loved the two most primary protagonists, two more were really great to see in this game and the last two were... good to exist in the game for story reasons, but didn't really have anything to offer after the cast of 3 and compared to the rest of the cast of Future Redeemed. The story was pretty snappy, always making actual progress to toward the main goal, not meandering and wasting my time, as was the dialog - even the side quest and random npc dialog didn't drone on and on like it does in 3.

Screenshots past this point very spoilery.

Xenoblade Chronicles 3

• Genre: RPG
• Time Played: 154 Hours
• Too Short/Long: Far too long. One of the longest games I've played that did not deserve it's running time.
• Pleased/Disappointed: I didn't dislike the game as a whole, but I'm the length and abundance just wore on me so much that it's hard to say I'm "pleased" at the end of everything.
• Why I played: Xenoblade Chronicles 3 just seemed like it would appeal to me far more than the 2nd, I want to say I saw something earlier this year that made me really want to dig into it, maybe the Ouroboros forms and such? It's not quite what I expected.
• Recommend to others: I can't really recommend it unless you think More=Better and just want to stick with one game for awhile. If that's what you like, that this might have greater appeal.

I did like this game it - overall - it's just so hard to overlook how much there is to the game that doesn't need to be here.

Everything is just unnecessarily big or too much, the environment, the amount of areas, the amount of superfluous mechanics, the amount dialog. Everything could have been better scaled back. The amount of time you spend running around these huge environments is just ridiculous, and they're gorgeous, don't get me wrong, but there isn't enough diversity to warrant there being absolutely so much of it. Same for the monsters. It's great seeing so many different monsters of different sizes, but there are so many just everywhere. I avoided the vast majority of wild encounters and still ended up massively over leveled for end game, and I know I could raise the difficulty settings, but damn near all they do is inflate the HP bars of already overinflated enemies. It can take 5+ minutes in a battle to defeat something you out level by a dozen levels that literally does not have enough attack power to wipe out your party. You don't even need to participate in a lot of the combat, you can just let it play out - if you have the time.

Early game that's not so much the case, but later on - it's a little ridiculous, and maybe this isn't the case for someone who ONLY runs story content and isn't as good at optimizing their party, but I found it it very - not engaging, and I feel like the easiest solution to would have just been for there to be less of everything. Smaller world - that still could have been gigantic, because the sheer size of this world is just - It's immense. I don't think there is a game with more area to walk on where you can only walk.

There might be big open world games that have cars and aircraft that have bigger worlds, but this one did not. It had a boat for it's one area that is mostly water with scatter islands, but everywhere else you had to hoof it at excruciatingly slow running speeds. You get some upgrades to your running speed, but the most upgraded running speed feels like it should have been the early game default. At the very least we should have gotten like a 2x speed dash, especially because every single area is just so unnecessarily large and so long. I just don't feel I can convey this without repeating it multiple times.

Minishoot' Adventures

• Genre: Action Adventure Shmup
• Time Played: 8 Hours
• Too Short/Long: Pretty solid time, didn't wear out it's welcome, but I would have liked to have maybe seen some more unique abilities and a bit more game as a whole.
• Pleased/Disappointed: I liked it a lot.
• Why I played: Seems like a pretty perfect combination of things I liked.
• Recommend to others: I would definitely recommend it to anyone who likes say, 2d Zelda games, and shoot 'em ups, or at least, bullet-hell sequences in non-shoot 'em up games.

This is going to be a quick one because I actually finished the game a week ago, and just keep forgetting to say something about it - probably the longest I've gone without mentioning the game I finished.

Anyway, it was really good. I wish there was a bit more to it. Even though I play plenty of shorter games, this one just hit the right spot and I was hoping for some more unique powers, but you pretty much get the powers you would expect a shmup to have. Bullet, more bullets, bigger bullets, and move faster. That's fine. It did what it came to do and I liked it.

Battle Circuit

• Genre: Beat 'em up
• Time Played: ~1 Hour
• Partner: Alice, Taylor, Brandon
• Too Short/Long: Definitely on the short side, but on par for an arcade beat 'em up. You can stand at a cabinet for several hours.
• Pleased/Disappointed: I like it, I think it's a pretty good one.
• Why I played: Needed a warm up game before jumping into the inventory management sim that is Dragon's Crown. Also a palette cleanser after Mayhem Brawler.
• Recommend to others: I wouldn't go out of my way for Battle Circuit, but if you have it via a collection of some kind, as I do, it's worth playing.

I liked Battle Circuit. I think there was some mixed reception among those I played with, but it's not bad for a 90's arcade brawler. I like that it has input combos, and I like that it has upgrades. I just think it would have been neater if there were more input combos and more upgrades. Sometimes there is a bit too much going on screen to really tell what's happening, and sometimes it performs a pretty strong seizure check.

It's pretty quick paced though and general attacks feel good, and there is a diverse cast. I appreciate a lot of beat 'em ups for not just being "Guy 1, Guy 2, Woman".

Mayhem Brawler

• Genre: Beat 'em up
• Time Played: ~2 Hours
• Partner: Alice
• Too Short/Long: It's fine, maybe a bit short, but there are some branching paths, so you could go back to play the levels you missed out on.
• Pleased/Disappointed: Kinda neutral. It was okay, but didn't really stand out.
• Why I played: It was like 90% off and I just kinda wanted to play a Beat 'em up.
• Recommend to others: Not really, there are better beat 'em ups you can easily get cheap.

Mayhem Brawl is a Beat 'em up. It has a she-wolf character. I don't have much else to say that's positive. It's not a strictly BAD game. It's just kind of lacking. The "live twitter feed" during the story scenes is cute. Game play wise though, it just feels basic and unfortunately not too tight - I had a lot of trouble lining up in the game. Special moves happen almost quicker than you can see them in some cases, making them pretty lackluster in presentation. There isn't really a stand out mechanic or anything special to point out.

That's all I've got to say about that.

Signalis

• Genre: Survival Horror
• Time Played: 13 Hours
• Too Short/Long: It's probably a bit short for most peoples tastes, but for me, it felt long.
• Pleased/Disappointed: Undecided. Somewhere in the middle.
• Why I played: I mostly wanted to play because of the visuals in the game. The harsh use red, the awesome character art in the scenes, the red and black robot lesbian. I waited so long to play because I am too scared to play horror games, but a friend implored me to do so.
• Recommend to others: I don't know if I'd really recommend it to most. Maybe if you like to spend time theorizing about things.

I don't usually play survival horror games. I can barely handle horror sequences in non-survival horror games. Metal Gear for instance, usually likes to stick a horror sequence in each game. I tense up at those and really have to push through them.

To be honest, Signalis is probably the lightest Survival Horror game there is. There aren't really jump scares, and while the atmosphere is generally creepy, it doesn't do much dynamically to shift the atmosphere to make the moments more tense. You can clearly see when an enemy is coming up to "surprise" you, and you have plenty of time to react.

You can't go guns-a-blazing mind you. Each area and the game as a whole has finite ammo, and enemies don't have drops, but enemies do respawn at what seems like random intervals. Some seem to respawn multiple times, while others not at all. So this could eventually drain you to the point where you have no weapons at all. In most cases, that could be okay because there are actually a lot of areas where you can just run past enemies, and you can always take a few hits, and there are plenty of restorative times(but also finite).

So while it's pretty low level on the survival horror aspects, it's still just about too much for me. I powered through because I dig other aspects about the game. Gameplay wise, it's damn near almost a puzzle adventure game - but I guess a lot of survival horror games probably have this element, I just don't play them. But you do get a decent amount of puzzles to solve, even if some are just connected the dots on what means what.

The action could be a bit more dynamic, but I'm coming from a place of not usually being into these types of games. For instance on the enemies "respawn" when they are getting themselves back up, or when enemies are crawling out of vents, I feel like you should be able to run over and kick them while their down. "kicking them while they're down" is already a mechanic, so why can't I use it in more situations?

While I understand inventory limitations are a way of making things more tense, I can't help but feel it was too limited, to the point of just making the game more tedious. 6 item slots the whole game, and yet sometimes you have a door that specifically has 6 keys. So you either only carry the keys or make multiple trips. There are just a lot situations where I found myself unnecessarily running back and forth - and nothing really happened in those instances where having smaller inventory enhanced the moment, even in a way I wouldn't like. There should have been 8 slots.

Stellar Blade

• Genre: Action
• Time Played: 50 Hours
• Too Short/Long: Pretty much just right, could have trimmed the time a little if some areas weren't so unnecessarily large.
• Pleased/Disappointed: I'm very pleased with it.
• Why I played: Once it was released I kept hearing that it was like Nier and looked a bit into it myself and it just made me want to play more and more.
• Recommend to others: I definitely would recommend Stellar Blade. It was a really good game.

Stellar Blade is definitely a Nier-like, or Near-Nier as my wife coined. Off the top of my head, I have only played one other game so directly and blatantly inspired by Nier, and that would be Ultra Age, which I loved, and I loved this. It might not be one of the games I love the most, but it's like the next tier. Just on the outside of that range where I would consider it one of my absolute favorites.

It comes up short in aspects I wish it was more like Nier, with some more variation in the game play that I really thought they were going to use, some more varied locations and boss fights that really feel different. It also feels like every area is just too big and there is too much and they go on just for the sake of it. They do have some gun-only sequences by maybe they didn't click with me much because they're kinda survival-horror style, which I don't do well. But hey, there is fishing.

Don't get me wrong, it's not like they make bad use of the space, and don't give you variety in exploration. The amount of side quests feels about right, and what they do, is very polished. I just felt like like each zone was bigger than necessary. I felt like I got plenty of time - more than necessary, to fight each different type of enemy in each different type of situation.

The combat is really good, so, it didn't really wear out it's welcome, but it did take awhile - like, half the game, before I really synergized with the combat. It could benefit from being just a touch more forgiving with the timing. In a game based around parries, and more or less perfect timing, the window for that perfect timing could be a little more open considering the dozens upon dozens of attack patterns there are in the game, and every enemy has several, bosses several more, and some will look very similar, so getting the timing down just perfect is quite the task. They could have telegraphed a little more, or gave you a little bit more breathing room. I would have been fine with that.

But it mostly clicked, and I had a really fun time with it.

Odin Sphere: Leifthrasir

• Genre: Action RPG
• Time Played: 55 Hours
• Too Short/Long: A little long, it can get a little repetitive and monotonous.
• Pleased/Disappointed: Very pleased, it's one of my favorites.
• Why I played: After playing Unicorn Overlord I wanted some more Vanillaware flavored games. I tried playing a Vanillaware inspired game, but it just made me want to play Odin Sphere. So I played Odin Sphere.
• Recommend to others: Odin Sphere is probably a game I would recommend to everyone. It's just a great game, and even if it has some flaws, I think it's worth everyone trying it.

Earlier this year I had revised my favorite game list to include some stuff I had played in recent times, and Odin Sphere got bumped just off the list, scoring only 19 of the required 20 points or more. I reevaluated Odin Sphere now, with it fresh in my mind and bumped it back up to 33 points which coincidently places it alongside some very similar games.

When Leifthrasir came out, I played a little bit(apparently around 15 hours according to my old save) but didn't finish it because it felt all too fresh in my head. I supposed it was less than a decade after the original version's launch. But now, 17 years later, I got to the point where I only remembered certain aspects(and maybe the first dozen hours). The game can be a little long and feel a bit grindy at moments, like you're just kind of doing combat over and over again, but, that is also kind of the point. While I would still classify this as an "action rpg" the emphasis is on the action.