Recent reviews by Spermy

If there's a modern video-game series that can be considered "Balls-to-the-wall hard" or "Nintendo hard"(NES era, mind you), then most people will think of Dark Souls. That being said, after you've finished this game, you'll probably be thinking that The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is for pre pubescent girls. But let me get a little more in-depth on why you should (or shouldn't):

Gameplay 8/10: A few MMO/RPG elements are involved in Dark Souls; mainly with stat allocation that includes upgrading strength, dexterity, endurance, etc. with the immensely versatile souls. However, there's quite a few factors that make Dark Souls vastly different than a standard third person hack and slash fantasy. The souls work as both a source of experience points and currency, as well as magic that oddly enough does not rely on the use of mana but rather a predetermined quality that can be used between safe points (Bonfires) are good example that there's a lot of fantasy elements that are changed to the point where Dark Souls can be its own unique thing.

Covenants are also a rather unique factor in Dark Souls, as they are the only source of direct online interaction. Like weapons or attributes, covenants can also determine depending solely on your play-style. Do you like PvP and being an evil butt? Try the elusive Darkwraiths. Prefer to have jolly cooperation? Try out the Warrior of Sunlight. Or maybe you just want more honourable duels? Consider Path of the Dragon. All of these alliances play major roles within the PvP/Co-Op scene, and allows for further character customization.

There are a couple of flaws with gameplay though, the main issue being the port from Console to Personal Computer systems. Though a lot of bugs with online play and other PC issues have been fixed, the usage of keyboard+mouse is almost always surpassed by using a controller due to the poor controls, making it feel like Dark Souls was never intended to be a PC game. If you have a controller (Playstation brand can work but Xbox is much more suitable), then this issue won't be a huge problem for you.

Graphics 7/10: Nothing's really changed significantly between the ports, so Dark Souls loses points for that, along with the lack of mouth movement when people talk, and that Xbox controls are still used within the game (ie. press "B" to evade, when it's space on the Keyboard or triangle on Playstation controllers). All these little factors urk me to no end, but I'm not all negative about the graphics (I gave it a 7 after all).

On the flip side, the designs of a majority of the creatures and armors are very creative compared to quite a bit of fantasy titles, yet still adds a couple of very cliché monsters (namely: rats and skeletons) to change it up. PC specs are not super demanding, so a lot of people can play Dark Souls without much lag or FPS drops. Some NPC designs are outright deceiving (Petrus of Thorolund is a great example) and it may surprise some players that silly looking characters may be very useful.. Or possibly the opposite~

Difficulty 8/10: Ah yes, the most controversial topic. I'm not going to judge this on glitches/exploits or faulty controls, just full on, pure difficulty within the game. You essentially begin the first 5 minutes fighting a 30 foot demon with a broken, rusted half of a sword. That alone should set in what the game has in store for you. Dark Souls' difficulty is fairly consitant and does gradually get more hard up until the halfway point. A lot of bosses initially seem difficult, but when you know of a strategy against them, they become a lot more tolerable with your newly found MLG strats.

But then, you'll come across the infamous duo, Dragonslayer Ornstein and Executioner Smaugh. Arguably the most difficult bosses in the game, these two will be the deciding factor on whether or not you can win Dark Souls or completely give up. So why mention these behemoths of boss battles? After this point, the difficulty fluctuates, but never really gets harder than this point. This is a fairly severe flaw in my opinion because of how early on this occurs, and these two should appear much later-- even second-to-last bosses of the game. After you deal with them, you can probably just take on any boss/enemy from that point on, which can be a little grating.

Story 8/10: It's vague. Not as vague as say, Five Nights at Freddy's, but it's up there. This does the whole "Chosen One" cliché but with a little more finesse; as a majority of people in the game are simply unaware of it and you simply have no idea who to trust and who not to. This can create a sort of isolated feeling, which is very strange when it is your generic "Chosen One" story. People'll either treat you like dirt or as a simple friend, but nothing really outside of that with the exception of deities and alike who are aware. There's also a nice mix of personalities: You've got the Crestfallen Warrior and Merchant who's shady and pessimistic respectively, but characters like Solaire of Astoria or Siegmeyer of Catarina are a few who are jolly, humble and optimistic about their undeath makes you want to keep going or like them a lot more than most. A blend of characters, although limited, is well done in this title.

Overall: I can ramble on about this game for hours upon hours, but I'll leave it as that. Dark Souls is one of those games that is truly unexpecting. You think you're going through a game that is just meant to tear your butt a new one, but has some hidden strategies, fairly good characters and story. If you want a challenge and have that special little high of accomplishing a difficult level or killing off a hard boss, this is the game for you.

If you're susceptible to rage, short-patience, or hit things and hope for the best, you might want to stick with Skyrim.

While Sonic The Hedgehog is now little more than an online joke, Freedom Planet's Lilac and Carol are (or should be) taking the spotlight for retro-esque fast-paced platformer. The game's great in some areas and poor in others, while not being as memorable as the 8-bit wonder of Shovel Knight or as popular as Five Nights at Freddie's, this is one of those underrated gems that's just a little too overlooked.

Gameplay: 9/10: If you're familiar with classic Sonic The Hedgehog, you'll be fairly familiar with Freedom Planet. A fast-paced platformer with multiple characters to choose from with their own unique talents to add more versatility in the game. The controls themselves are fluent for the most part, only having a minor issue with the ends of jumps (Though this is only really apparent in a level outside of the main game itself). The difficulty itself isn't too bad, though the difficulty spike really ramps up specifically at the Stage 8 midboss, onwards. The bosses are cleverly designed and get rightfully more difficult as the game progresses, requiring you to use different strategies with your character. My only real complaint are the powerups, consisting nothing but shields, shields, and more shields.

Graphics 7/10: The visuals in the game are very appealing, especially for a 16-bitish game, and most of the character designs are great. Not just the characters, but the stages are also designed very well, which is where a majority of my praise comes from, going through temples in one instance only to be traveling through a supermarket filled with baddies the next. Admittedly though, Quite a few instances feel very oriental, which throws me off of the otherworldly experiance. Knowing this is taking place on a whole seperate planet and I can't think that these sentient species decide to have their culture similar to that of Earth's Asian cultures. Call it a nitpick as well, but I can't see an alien culture heavily similar to our own.

Story 5/10:The worst thing about Freedom Planet is the story, voice acting, and character developement... Respectively. While there are a couple good voices and originality put into the story, it's overshadowed by the sub-par voices and Clichés. Your characters don't go too far from being tokens, the main 3 playable characters being a good example (Lilac=levelheaded heroin, Carol=hot-temptered but a softy on the inside, Milla=heavily shy and emotional, opening up to previously mentioned characters). The story itself is passable, and you're free to select "classic" mode to ignore most of it.

As for the voice acting, a majority is tolerable with the exception of Spade, who's... Cringeworthy for having the "edgy emo kid" tone, similar to Shadow the Hedgehog but a little more "amateur-ish". Torgue's doesn't fair well either simply for having little emotion for a vast majority of the game along with a slight scottish accent, subtle to the point where can't really tell if he's got one or not. I can't ignore the voices that aren't bad at all, like the Magister's, Lord Brevon's, and the Dragon Scientist's.

Sound 8/10: The game's soundtrack is great overall, with a few hiccups here and there. While most tracks are great like Relic Maze's, Dragon Valley, Thermal Base and more, there are few duds like half the Dreadnaught themes that I'm not a fan of. The main theme of the game however is one of the best in it, which just amps you up to hear more of what the soundtrack has to offer. By no means is this the sound quality of Shovel Knight, it's still worth a good listen!

The game's flawed, yes, but even if you're not much of a fan of Sonic, you'd probably still like Freedom planet. It's not as fast-paced as Sonic, but that's easily countered by the special traits each character has within their abilities. As for the Sonic fans themselves: If you've wanted some resurrection in the series, Freedom Planet isn't that- It's a reincarnation.

Shovel Knight is perhaps one of the most original independant platformers of 2014 which makes an attempt to emulate a traditional NES game. Not only this, it plays simplistically yet very fluent very similar to popular titles from that era. But I'm getting ahead of myself, let's talk about this masterpiece.

Gameplay 9/10: The game is simplistic enough that even very young gamers can have fun with and -eventually- beat, while having more complex mechanics like the relics you find and use throughout the game, though not manditory, they make your life a lot easier. Unfortunately, said items can be exploited at best and make the game easy as pie, which personally, I think games should never be easy throughout the entirity of the session unless theres a clear difficulty setting (hint, there isn't).

But there's a lot more positives than negatives, you can simply slash at things or you can jump down with your shovel and impale your rivals from above, and even deflect most projectiles with your shovel, making swords feel obsolete to the glorious weapon that is the shovel. This makes the first weapon you have one of your most reliable. This ontop of you capable of upgrading both your armor and shovel makes it that much more sweet to wreck your enemies with.

Soundtrack 10/10: I hate giving things a perfect score, I really do, but there's always something to improve, but honestly, there is not a single song in this game I dislike. The best thing about the game is probably the soundtrack itself, which gives Touhou (a game series that heavily relies on soundtrack) a run for its money. Funnily enough, the whole soundtrack can fit in a Kirby's Adventure NES Cartridge.

Graphics 9/10: The devs for the game have made the graphics and visuals replicate almost exactly like an NES game. Emphasis on -Almost-, since there are quite a few colours utilized in this game that the NES can not support (Example Polar Knight's cape's beige colour). These colours also make the sprite work not just good, but too good for NES standards, and it's honestly noticeable in a fair amount of areas within the game. I only take off one point because of this reason alone, while the majority of the game does look genuine to the NES format.

Story 7/10: The story is your generic knight saves a damsel in distress (Despite the damsel being a knight herself), which is cliche'd beyond belief and the situation itself isnt really taken into parody, which is really the only way this could work without it being a Mario game. What makes the story good is the subtle comedy, a good example being the name of the antagonist group "Order of No Quarter" makes it that much better. The Story's also greater with its ending and final battle, which to be fair, won't be spoiling for those readers.

Overall, this game's an NES platformer in 2014 on the PC, what more can I say? It's amazing for retro gamers along with the mechanics being great and the controls as fluent as ever. The subtle comedy is a fresh relief from all the adventuring you're doing. Not to mention the glorious soundtrack this game has will have you hooked on 8-bit music for a long time.

Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel (Shortened to BL:TPS) is kind of a mixed bag and overall interesting title added to the Borderlands series. The game relies more around the story than it does with the other titles but that doesn't make it bad at all (in my opinion more of an improvement).

Gameplay 7/10: The game itself has four (six with DLC) classes that are completely different compared to the previous ten Vault Hunter playables, having a melee based tank to a dinky robot with 9-15 different action skills to getting to play (sort of) the main villain of the franchise. There is a new weapon type that expands even more within the Borderlands weapon diversity: lasers, which are always elemental and always do something different, ranging from a shotgun-esque laser to a railgun penetrating rifle. The relic slot is changed to an O2 Kit (Slang Oz Kit) which boosts your jumps, provides air, and gives you the ability to slam; an Area-of-effect attack around you amungst other effects that alter your slams, guns, etc.

Now the flaws of the gameplay is other than what's listed above not much has changed, which has made people lovingly call this a "DLC of Borderlands 2". A majority of the enemies are similar to those in previous titles to the point where some bosses were very identical to the ones in BL2. One only other complaint is the amount of unfarmable bosses that drop Legendary Loot, and there are plenty of them in this game. This may be remedied by the fact that stores now hold Legendary equipment from time to time, but there's no easy farmable way to gain these weapons.

Graphics 8/10: I absolutely love the visuals within the Borderlands franchise and I always feel Stylish graphics > Realistic, because the game becomes much more memorable. Borderlands has done this again with its traditional cell shaded styling. Shadows are barely a problem, while a majority of the characters' portrait artwork is greater than comparison with previous installments and less NPCs are found without their own portrait. The biggest flaw is that there isnt much of difference in terms of graphics between Borderlands 2 and Borderlands: The Pre Sequel, making the game being an "extended DLC" joke more emphasised.

Story 9/10: The story is honestly the best within the series, explaining the rise of Handsome Jack in more detail to the point where a lot of players (including myself) have sympathized with this character unlike the previous installment where a lot of people hated him for his actions. It shows fairly good developement of Jack's psychopathy aswell as his extreme narcissism, making him a much more greater overall character now than before. You still interact with some of the vault hunters from Borderlands 1, Moxxi and other recognizable characters, while the references from other games and Borderlands humor is there aswell. Lastly, the dialogue within the story telling of Pre sequal is changed from Normal mode and the advanced difficulty; True Vault Hunter mode, which is a great touch from Gearbox.

The lack of both Dr. Zed and Marcus (In person only) is my only flaw within the story, but Nurse Nina - the moon's doctor replacement- is not that bad of a addition to the game... In my opinion. On a side note, the majority of new characters being voiced by Australians have irritated a few players aswell, but it was barely a problem for me, personally.

Difficulty 7/10: I never found the game to be difficult at all and I've played through a majority of the content. There isn't that one part where the game becomes truely frustrating, yet there isnt really a point when it's at the difficulty where it really gets the adrenaline going until endgame where enemy levels scale with yours.

Overall, this game is great, but not as amazing as Borderlands 2, which truely set the bar for upcomming games. I recommend it to those who aren't easily annoyed by Australian voice actors, and really wish for a expansion on Borderlands' story, which it does very well at. Ofcourse, if you're one who prefers to play as the baddie than the good guy, this may also be for you!