Wall World

• Genre: Action Roguelite
• Spoiler Free Review: Not much to spoil.
• Time Played: 13 Hours?
• Too Short/Long: It would have been fine if I didn't have to play more than I needed.
• Did I cry: No.
• Soundtrack: It's fine but very much in the background and hardly noticeable. 
• Why I played: I think I got this around the same time I got Ocean Keeper, and I think they are both in the same tree of games of inspiration. Dome Keeper inspiring this and maybe this inspiring Ocean Keeper. There is a spider mech, I like those.
• Jank: It's very janky. Not so much until you start getting speed upgrades and I guess the game just can't keep up with you? So you get stuck in a position where you can't do anything because the world won't load. It happens in a smaller degree with just a little bit of fast paced traveling, where you need to hover around a mine entrance and eventually you can enter it - if you just go as fast as you can through several biomes - consider your run forfeit. Unfortunately I didn't realize this was going to be a persistent issue.
• Difficulty: It's a little difficult at first, making it feel like you never have enough time, and really it never gets much better but like most rouge-lites, the upgrades that carry over from run to run in addition to figuring out how to better optimize your time make it easier and easier.
• Something I liked: I liked the core gameplay loop, which is probably why I was willing to return despite my frustrations with the game essentially crashing 2/3rds of the way through an hour run several times.
• Pleased/Disappointed: It's fine. I enjoyed it. I'm just a bit bitter because I feel like I wasted a few more hours than I needed to.
• Recommend to others: I would if it didn't have that one big glaring flaw. You're on a time limit with this game so you need to try to be as efficient with it as possible, but if you are too efficient the game becomes unplayable, so it's gonna be a no.
  

Wall World looks cool and had some really fun design choices. The gameplay loop of going into mines and coming out to fight off monsters between a couple phases of the boss coming out is pretty fun. I kept feeling like it could be just a little more generous with the time, but I guess the point of it is - you aren't necessarily supposed to do everything each run, just what you can. Had I known, I could have tried exploring the world a bit different and cut some time down outside of the crashing issues, but I was being hard headed and determined I could do everything faster and could do everything in a run.

It was wholly unnecessary though, because as it turns out, the end is just a little bit anti-climactic and I wasn't going to really need much once I met the requirements to end the game.

I will say I did only find like 3 of it's dozen weapons useful at all and a lot of the upgrades just aren't that great. All passive upgrades are great, but a lot of the active use items you get through each run just aren't worth it - in my opinion. There could be some issues with balance there, or just my style of playing, but I felt a little limited and didn't even use most stuff most the game because you're on a time crunch, and I was trying to utilize it as optimally as possible.

70s-style Robot Anime Geppy-X

• Genre: Shmup
• Spoiler Free Review: Yes.
• Time Played: ~13 hours
• Too Short/Long: No complaints either way.
• Did I cry: No.
• Soundtrack: Amazing, absolutely amazing.
• Why I played: A shmup with 90's mecha anime art(even if it attempts to be 70's style), how could I not?
• Jank: It's definitely a bit janky in how it handles. I play a lot of shmups, and sure, maybe one from the 90's may not be as refined as modern shmups... is something you could almost say if some of the best shmups to this day weren't also released in the 90s. Granted, if it were one of the best, it would be much more well know.
• Difficulty: It's damn hard. I attribute a good portion to the jank. Unclear hitboxes for any of the mechs you pilot, and for the shots hitting you. I played the repeated pause game to be sure of it, but things absolutely contact when they shouldn't. It even says in the manual how Geppy's chest is the only part you will take damage from getting hit. Absolutely not true... or maybe it is and all the shots just have wider margins than their visuals. Not only that, but a lot of the patterns provide inconsistent openings. After playing through the entire campaign several times, I did learn some placement for cheesing certain attacks, but I'm not sure if that's by design and if so, I still don't like it.
• Pleased/Disappointed: I'm very pleased at the overall package. Even if it's unfairly difficult and a mediocre shmup, the whole experience is very enjoyable.
• Recommend to others: I would probably only recommend it to those with a strong interest in the Super Robot genre, specifically that of the 70s-style Robot Anime. Who also at least kind of like shmups.
  

Geppy-X plays almost like a bonus shmup mini-game that is added to another game of a different genre. You know the kind(maybe you don't, I don't know your life), it's thrown as a bonus mode, mini-game, boss fight, etc. and feels a little loose, a little unfair, a little chaotic and unbalanced. Well, at least those ones are better than the alternative - which are the too-boring ultra basic, ultra easy shmup mini-games.

Thankfully, it still manages to standout due to it's overall package. Filled with a story line presented like a 70s super robot anime, openings, endings, commercials and all. It's fantastic and super fun. It made it worth me fully replaying and enduring it multiple times just to get little differences in the cutscenes with different characters.

It helps that despite the 70's inspiration, it was very very clearly made in the 90s. The character designs, even many of the mecha designs, are clearly 90s designs with very 90s artwork. I'd say they better nail the 70s-style design with the side-mecha, but to be fair, the titular Geppy-X while drawing obvious inspiration, is a little more original than it's almost carbon-copy secondary mecha.

There is a really solid amount of content in the game, especially for a 90s shmup. Not only does it have multiple, kinda-animated to more-fully animated between each mission, it has a good amount of stage bonuses and little easter-eggs and different cutscenes for finishing off each boss in a specific way, and a bunch of unlockable modes. That's what really sells the game. The gameplay itself could be a lot more polished, but otherwise you can't really ask for more in a shmup.

Split Fiction

• Genre: Action Adventure Platforming Etc.
• Spoiler Free Review: Mostly, but the screenshots could arguably be the most spoilery as a good bit of the experience is finding out what parts of the game you encounter next.
• Partners: Alice
• Time Played: 15 Hours
• Too Short/Long: It's pretty good. Some sections I might have liked to have seen explored more or revisited, but I can't complain.
• Did I cry: I got watery eyed a couple times.
• Soundtrack: There is some good music and even some vocal tracks, but it's mostly an undertone for the gameplay since the majority of the game has dialog spoken throughout.
• Why I played: It just seemed like it would be a great co-op game. Obviously the studios previous games were great co-op experiences, but this one seemed even better and a bit more aligned with Alice and my interests.
• Jank: It's mostly pretty jank-free, surprisingly with everything they do with the game. There a couple times it feels like the platforming could have been fine tuned just a bit, and just a few times it does actually feel janky, but it's such a small percentage of the game play, and it's otherwise impressive how much they pull off that I'll fully give them a pass on any of the jank that seeps through.
• Difficulty: It's mostly not that difficult and it's very forgiving when it comes to death/failure. There are some spots it's surprisingly difficult though, but most the difficulty comes from the times where it leaves you alone to figure things out on your own - which I appreciate.
• Pleased/Disappointed: I'm extremely pleased with Split Fiction, it's even better than I expected.
• Recommend to others: I would absolutely recommend this to anyone with someone they can reliably play through the whole game with. If you have someone to play co-op games with, you should definitely play this.
  

Split Fiction was fantastic. I'm not sure what really needs to be said. I definitely think it's one of the best and most impressive games that released last year. It just does so much in the game, explores so many genres, and types of gameplay, while generally retaining a familiar feel. Split Fiction is definitely something I would call a "gamer's game", something I think people who love games in general and play a lot of games will appreciate more than anyone else. But it's also much more accessible than most games I would call a "gamer's game". Something like Evoland - the first game I can think of I would also classify as such, is definitely more for people who are a bit more obsessed with games, and especially older games, and especially jrpgs, it's something I don't think everyone would enjoy. I think anyone would enjoy Split Fiction - it just has that much more to offer the more you already like.

Arguably the worst aspect of Split Fiction is the narrative. There are times it's clunky. Times it's cheesy. Times you really have to suspend your disbelief. Also just portrayals of the characters archetypes that are just very narrow or cliche. That said, the writing is still generally pretty fun and entertaining, and it doesn't fumble it so much you can't be emotionally invested, but the appeal and strength is definitely the gameplay and how seemless it is from the moment-to-moment.

It was loads of fun and that's what matters most, and so I have a bunch of screenshots I wanna share but these are arguably spoilery as finding out and seeing what you encounter is perhaps the best part of the game, so with that warning, everything below is just kind of in random order.

Codename: Ocean Keeper

• Genre: Action
• Spoiler Free Review: Yes.
• Time Played: 15-20 Hours
• Too Short/Long: It's about right.
• Did I cry: No.
• Soundtrack: It has some good tracks but nothing I'm going to seek out to listen to on it's own.
• Why I played: It looked cool, had a spider mech.
• Jank: The Switch version is definitely a little janky and just decides to randomly crash. I might have finished the game a bit sooner if not for that.
• Difficulty: It's got rougelite progression where you get upgrades as you play and get further and as you get more upgrades, it's not too difficult.
• Pleased/Disappointed: Pleased enough.
• Recommend to others: I wouldn't exactly go out of my way. It's a perfectly serviceable game and entertained me, similar games that this one may have taken inspiration from like... Dome Keeper and Wall World might be more worth it to some.
  

Hey, finally played a game made in the past decade this year. At first it was just kind of a filler game because I wasn't sure what to play and was like "oh I got that, let me check that out" and ended up getting hooked on the gameplay loop.

Codename: Ocean Keeper, also known as Ocean Keeper: Dome Survivor on Steam is almost definitely inspired by the above mentioned games. I've only played Wall World, but I've also seen Dome Keeper, and I've seen a couple other similar games, but this one is pretty new by comparison. It has a cool mech though and a decent enough amount of options for weapons and upgrades that I opted to sink my time into this one.

You have a minute and a half between waves of enemies that are progressively more deadly, during which you need to find a mine, do some mining, use minerals to upgrade your stuff so you can survive more waves of enemies. Pretty simple. There are some light puzzle areas that are story related and a little bit of the random upgrades per run mechanic, but both are pretty much the lightest they could be without not existing. I would have liked to have seen larger timers or a timer pause so they could maybe do more intricate or just more of the little puzzle areas, but there are only a handful of them.

Omochapon

• Genre: Platforming
• Spoiler Free Review: Not really anything to spoil
• Time Played: 2 hrs 50 min
• Too Short/Long: It's appropriate for what it offers.
• Soundtrack: Almost non-existent. Most of the the games background is random mechanical sounds or maybe elevator music at best. 
• Pleased/Disappointed: It's fine.
• Why I played: I needed something low-effort after Tunic. Something I could just play and mostly turn my mind off to, this worked out pretty well.
• Did I cry: No.
• Recommend to others: Probably not. It's fine, it's just not anything really special.

Omochapon harkens back to the early days of 3D platforming. This could have easily been a PSX/Saturn/N64 platformer, and maybe been better for it. Even if it were released 30 years ago though, I don't think it would have been revolutionary. That's not to say it's bad, it's just pretty simple, it generally uses only one or two buttons per form and there is a switching form button.

You get a handful of toys you unlock/play as, but most of them just feel like their only purpose is to serve as an ability gate. The robot exists almost exclusively to climb ladders, but can also open things. It's most clever use is mid-air switching to it when performing platforming as a car/bunny, or flying in the plane directly into a ladder - which to robot happens to be the only one that can climb. Despite it arguably being the "coolest" and the only one that isn't a gashapon toy, but a boxed figure, it is probably the one you play as the least. Even the pill bug toy has a couple forced sections where you play similar to a marble platforming game.

It's not bad, it's a cute game. It could be a lot more, but I'm not complaining.

UFO Robot Grendizer - The Feast of Wolves

• Genre: Action
• Spoiler Free Review: Yeah, unless you look at the screenshots too closely.
• Time Played: ~10 Hours
• Too Short/Long: It feels about right.
• Soundtrack: There are some classic tunes when the action is going on, something I'm sure is nostalgic for fans, but either way reminiscent of old timey action super robots, but nothing mind blowing. Interestingly there is no music when nothing is happening, so you get to hear a lot of Grendizer's feet stomping. 
• Pleased/Disappointed: Very pleased actually, despite it's jank.
• Why I played: A handful of mech games came out last year, in fact another that featured Grendizer - Megaton Musashi. I often tell people I'm more of a "mech video game" person than mech anime person. Here you have the best of both worlds.
• Did I cry: No.
• Recommend to others: I think anyone I would truly recommend it to has already played it. It's also too broken and too budget for me to really want to go out on a limb here. But if I ever hear someone mention liking Grendizer, likely the first thing I will then ask them is, "Did you play The Feast of Wolves game?"

Grendizer surprised me a good bit. Not that I expected it to be bad, which in some senses, it really was, but I didn't expect to enjoy it quite so much. I thought the combat would be a bit more basic, and I didn't expect as much variety as they provided me with outside the standard gameplay.

After playing a good chunk of Gundam Breakers 4 and Megaton Musashi this past year, I expected something more along the lines of them. A pretty basic combat system where I just spam things as much as possible, in a linear path or single combat arena. Nope, instead Grendizer offers a pretty unique enemy "shield" that forces you to alternate your attacks in a less spammy way. It also offer some, maybe simple, but challenges none the less, that require you to run around, act quick, use ranged attacks, etc. If that wasn't enough, between stages you're likely to get a shoot 'em up or even on-rails shooter sequence. I think in at least one instance, both back to back. They're not so involved or long that they detract from the main game, but not so simple they feel pointless. It's a good balance when compared to the rest of what the game has to offer.

Power Rangers: Rita's Rewind

• Genre: Beat 'em up
• Spoiler Free Review: Yeah, though I don't really think there is anything to spoil, either.
• Time Played: 3 Hours
• Partners: Alice, Taylor, Brandon
• Too Short/Long: It feels about right for a more or less standard beat 'em up.
• Soundtrack: While there are some really good Power Rangers tracks, it's not doing anything too special with them. 
• Pleased/Disappointed: A little bit of both, I had fun with it and am glad it existed, but it wasn't all that ambitious.
• Why I played: I love the Power Rangers franchise and the timing of this release was really perfect, following my personal Power Ranger Renaissance era.
• Did I cry: Only because of how bad I was at at Megazord combat.
• Recommend to others: It's hard for me to actually recommend it. There are many better beat 'em ups. But there aren't many better Power Rangers games, so it's fun having some... not bad Power Ranger content.

Rita's Rewind kind of pulled a 180° on me. I was pretty hype seeing initial trailers and such, and thought this was gonna be the best beat 'em up in years. Better than Shredder's Revenge, maybe even better than River City Girls 2(no hope to be better than the first though). It was not.

It was fine. It was serviceable, and there is some fun stuff in there for Power Ranger fans. But it's not gonna blow anyone away. It's more or less what you'd expect from an older licensed title. More or less standard fair with a Power Rangers coat of paint.

There character don't really control or act differently, they pretty much all have the same exact move sets/stats/handling etc. So who you play is only for aesthetics. The Megazord combat leaves a lot to be desired. It's actually pretty similar to Divine Dynamo Flamefrit which I played not too long ago. Instead you have to chase down your opponent and there is no shooting, so it grows a little tiring. Maybe this actually would have benefitted from playing single player? In multiplayer you alternate turns for the Megazord, and maybe it just took us out of the groove. Still I can't help but feel like they could have mixed up the gimmicks for the different fights.

There are also individual Zord, and motorcycles sequences, so between the 4 different types of gameplay, it does a good job at mixing up the content. It's just all imperfect. I can't help but feel like each aspect is just missing that one thing to make it much better, and there is often too much happening on screen to see what's going on, creating a downward spiral of messing things up.

Still, I had fun with it, even if it could have been a little frustrating and wasn't as inspired as I hoped for.

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.

Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon

• Genre: Action
• Time Played: 38 Hours
• Too Short/Long: Too long, because you have to replay many missions at least 3 times to see everything, but just right... maybe too short if you were just fine with one ending and missing a good deal of content.
• Pleased/Disappointed: I'm super happy with this. I am of course super happy to see From Software making a mech game again, but it's also probably the best Armored Core.
• Why I played: I've always been an Armored Core fan and constantly lament to anyone who brings up Souls games to me that I missed the days when From Software made mech games. When they announced Armored Core 6 was coming after a decade of no mech games(when previously they would sometimes put out multiple a year). I was excited to say the least.
• Recommend to others: I don't think I have to. Due to From Software's newly found popularity as a developer(as in, since they stopped making Armored Core games), I think more people are playing this one than any prior. That said, it's still, at it's core, the same game. I like it a lot, but I don't think it's going to sway anyone who doesn't like mecha games, or didn't like an old Armored Core.

Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon is possibly the best Armored Core game, but it's still an Armored Core game, and they were never perfect before. The level design was possibly the best it's been in the series, but there is a certain lack of scale that makes sense in any sense of grounded reality. Everything is clearly to scale to the mechs, which means you never really have that "larger than life" feeling you generally want when piloting a mech. Sure, you can see some small details, like staircases, ladders, and cars(only very large military vehicles mind you), but every ladder leads to a platform no smaller than 4 football fields.

Chained Echoes

• Genre: RPG
• Time Played: 73+ Hours
• Too Short/Long: I would almost say it's a little long, but I also did everything everything. I'm usually not so completionist with RPGs, but I was enjoying it.
• Pleased/Disappointed: Pleased for sure, I liked it a lot. I'm not sure it makes the ranks of best games ever, but it's very good.
• Why I played: I feel like I have to play any rpg with mech battles.
• Recommend to others: I definitely do. While I may not say it's one of the best ever, it's extremely solid and there is very little to dislike.

I was waiting to play Chained Echoes for awhile. Waiting it's release, waiting til I had time, waiting for a little bit of a sale. Waiting so much that I almost ended up not finishing it before Tears of the Kingdom came out. I am writing this after midnight, on what is technically Tears of the Kingdom's launch date. To make things clear, I am VERY eagerly awaiting Tears of the Kingdom, I'm excited for it in a way I have not been excited for a game in a long time. I'm excited for it in a way that I don't think I've anticipated a game since I was a teenager. So I was doing my best to finish Chained Echoes before I got Tears of the Kingdom.

Biomotor Unitron

• Genre: Turn-Based RPG
• Time Played: >15 Hours
• Too Short/Long: About right, some time could have been cut from grinding.
• Pleased/Disappointed: Pleased
• Why I played: Build a robot/mech and cute character portraits.
• Recommend to others: Not really, unless you really like playing old games.

Biomotor Unitron was originally a Neo Geo Pocket game, I never had a Neo Geo Pocket, the US only got 31 games so it's about as justifiable as a Virtual Boy, it has a few more games, but no gimmick. Thankfully they released a bunch in collections for the Switch, I love the NGP style fighting games, and the Card Fighter games.

Biomotor Unitron has an artstyle that I love and miss. It's the perfect 90's anime RPG style art. It's got that aesthetic that makes me and all those vaporwave lovers love PC-98 art, regardless of some of it's questionable origins.