Recent reviews by :wq

A simple story about death and loss and moving on. The story isn't particularly deep or nuanced, but still engaging. The soundtrack is stellar. The presentation is beautiful; unlike traditional visual novels the scenes are thoughtfully composed and framed, reminiscent of what one might find in film.

A worthy sequel to the original Spelunky.

The game is more difficult than the original. The levels are larger and more complex. There are new mobs, while some old ones have new behaviors. These changes generally give the game a slower pace. The original Spelunky had simpler levels, with enemies that weren't very threatening; meaning that a sufficiently skilled player could essentially run through the game without getting into much danger. I enjoy the slower and more methodical playstyle, so I think this is a large improvement over the first game. Spelunky veterans who've developed an opposing playstyle preference may feel very differently. New players will likely find the opening levels too difficult for the first few hours.

Spelunky is full of secrets. Derek Yu made a comment in an interview (Noclip Podcast #39, ~26:35) on how gamers these days have a tendency to fixate on "beating the game". He mentioned that he designed Spelunky to be about exploration and discovery. Thinking to yourself - What happens if I do this, or do that, or how does this work, or how might I access this new area, and so on. I'm inclined to agree with this philosophy; I think a large part of why I'm enjoying Spelunky 2 so much is because everything is new and I'm trying to figure out what things do or how to do certain things. So far I've managed to avoid major spoilers and am just enjoying the personal discovery process. If you get the game wanting to "beat it", I think Spelunky 2 (and Spelunky in general) is not going to be for you.

This is a rather contentious game, and certainly not for everyone. I'd highly recommend it to anyone who has played and enjoyed the original Spelunky. I only weakly recommend it to new players; I think many people will be put off by the permadeath and lack of permanent upgrades common in other roguelites (e.g. Rogue Legacy, Hades, Dead Cells, etc.).

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Edit (2020-10-16):

I originally wrote this review when I had 30-ish hours. I'm at 70 hours now and I figured it's worth noting that my sentiments on the game have not changed. Also, since my original review the first couple levels have had the mob spawns tweaked, so it's a little more forgiving. Personally I haven't noticed the tweaks much, but it's likely simply because I've gotten good enough that the first biome isn't nearly as challenging as it was upon release.

An excellent game with interesting puzzles and a very compelling story.

The subtitle, "Digital detective adventure", is an apt description for the game. The puzzles are the investigative sort, with logical solutions. Most puzzles will involve reading emails/documents and looking at photographs for clues. Some have little minigames and physical interactions as well. The puzzles aren't straightforward either; you're typically required to take down notes, and the game helpfully provides a little notepad for you. I particularly enjoy the puzzles because often they're about some real-world scenario, whether it's solving a murder case or preventing some disaster. There's an overarching story as well, and each puzzle you solve is in some way tied to it.

As for the story, I must say I was hooked within the first 15 minutes. I honestly didn't expect such a compelling story! The story is presented in the form of text and email conversations, and it works surprisingly well. The "boring" nature of text conversations is enhanced by a rather interesting input mechanism. It's a little hard to explain coherently via text, but let's say that it introduces some interactivity to the act of advancing dialog.

There is a demo available. Honestly I only played it halfway before I went and purchased the game, but I think I can assume where the demo stops. I think it'll provide a good indication of what the game will be like. Highly recommend checking out the demo if what I've written above interests even in the slightest.

Pyromind takes a simple mechanic and executes it well. It's not particularly complex, but it doesn't have to be. Each turn one or more bombs appear on the field. Each bomb explodes after a certain number of turns, and their explosions can cause surrounding bombs to explode as well. You play a "mind" that runs around the field defusing bombs while avoiding explosions.

The trailer doesn't adequately convey what gameplay is like, and the still images don't help either; in practice gameplay is much more straightforward than the trailer might make it out to be. The tutorial takes about 30 seconds and you're good to go.

The game feels responsive. Interface is minimalistic and the field is easy to parse, which is helpful to get you into that flow state where you just react without thought. Each "mind" has some variance to its playstyle, though not by much.

However I do feel that the difficulty is a little overtuned. The last couple levels for each mode felt pretty much impossible. I think while the game is presented in a series of increasingly more difficult levels, you're really intended to think of the game in more of like a score attack fashion.

For a couple dollars I think it's a worthwhile pick for sure.

What a fantastic game. I didn’t expect it, but Persona 4: Golden has fast become one of my favorite RPGs. I’m a sucker for stories featuring camaraderie between a cast of characters, and this game delivers that so, so well. The interactions between characters felt so genuine.

I have a couple recommendations:

1. Try the game out with Japanese audio and English subs, you might prefer it. I much preferred this setup; couldn't stand the English dubs.
2. Go in as blind as you can. Stay away from forums until you've finished the game.

Love it. Bought it on a whim and was hooked within the first half hour.

The tutorialization is really good. Gradually introduces new concepts and eases the player into the flow of things. The campaign (called "training" levels in-game) is of excellent quality as well. I appreciated the heavy tutorialization that introduced the level editor, as someone without prior experience in the genre.

Speaking of the level editor, I found it intuitive to use. Had no issues with designing and building a level.

Though what really stands out to me is the level discoverability. Levelhead has a really smart system that incentives players to play newly-created levels made by other players. Essentially new levels get put into the "marketing department", and you earn "exposure bucks" from playing other player-created levels. These bucks can be spent on your own levels to increase its visibility.

The end result is a happy little feedback loop where you're incentived to play other players' levels, and other players' are incentivized to play yours. It's quite rewarding when the levels you so painstakingly build get played by others.

And finally... there are so many great levels by the community! Lots of very unique creations, which is also testament to the robust level editor.

Would absolutely recommend Levelhead to anyone even remotely interested in platformers.

What a wonderfully pleasant experience.

A Hat in Time is fun.

Let's start with options. I always say that the quality of the main menu and available options speaks volumes about the quality of the game itself. There is a surprisingly detailed assortment of options available here. Hell, motion blur is even separated into per-object motion blur and screen blur (because who likes screen blur?). Every option is accompanied with a description of what it does. In terms of essential options, you have all the ones you'd expect from a decent PC game: FoV sliders, individual audio sliders, wide array of FPS locks, and plenty of graphical options.

Performance wise, I get a consistent 120 FPS on a i5-6600K and GTX 1070 with every option maxed (except screen blur, of course). Seems fairly optimized for my particular build, but your mileage may vary.

Controls are tight. You never feel like you're fighting against the game.

Level design is, well, good. Not great, but good enough that you certainly don't notice its shortcomings while playing. When you step back and think about it though, the level design really isn't anything to write home about. In general I found the levels to be too busy and lacking cohesion. They're not very memorable in the sense that if you were to drop me in a random part of a level, I'd have difficulty identifying exactly where I was.

There's a ton of little details in the world that are just delightful. There's an adorable little roomba that roams your spaceship! But the one thing that really stood out to me is the 4-piece band you have in your spaceship. You can tell this band to play you some tunes, and get this: the members of the band only start playing at their corresponding parts of the song! If there aren't any drumbeats, the drummer doesn't drum. The trumpet player doesn't start playing until the song has trumpets. That's an incredible attention to detail.

Which I guess brings me to the soundtrack. It's phenomenal. At the time of writing (with a -20% discount), the deluxe edition is only $4 extra, and is well worth the cost. Gear with Breakfast has also put up the full soundtrack on YouTube, so go check it out!

The platforming is solid. It's not hard as nails; there's some measure of difficulty but not frustratingly so.

There's a lot of collectibles. Typically you get cosmetic rewards for your efforts. The platforming is satisfying enough that I had no qualms in going out of my way to collect 'em all.

Overall A Hat in Time is an exceedingly good game. I think it's one of those games that are greater than the sum of its parts. While each aspect of the game is good in and of itself; put together it's just a work of art.

Stardew Valley is about more than just farming. You fish, mine, rear animals, build relationships, marry, explore, and yes, make money. These systems are all extremely fleshed out.

There are multiple ways to construct a profitable farm. Be a bee keeper and sell honey. Place a ton of tappers on trees to collect their sap. Harvest fruits and make wine. Make beer and ale instead. Rear animals and sell their products. Or just straight up farm crops to sell.

The world feels alive and populated. The villagers have their own schedules and you often see them going about their day. After a while you get to know more about each character, and they're often deeper than would appear!

As you become more liked by the residents of Stardew Valley (by giving them gifts!), you'll trigger little cutscenes with them. These cutscenes and interactions do a really good job in making it feel like your relationship building efforts are actually doing something. It's this sense of progression that keeps the game from feeling like you're just raising an arbitrary stat to get a certain ending.

Speaking of progression, Stardew Valley's pacing is particularly well done. When you start the game for the first time, it doesn't hold your hand and lead you through a step-by-step tutorial. You get some seeds, basic farming instructions, and off you go. Then you're given an initial quest to meet the villagers. That's all you really need. Each new feature or system that comes up is organically introduced and explained. You never reach a point where you have to wonder, "well now what do I do?".

Wholeheartedly recommend. I feel a little guilty paying just $15 for this.

The story is non-existent. The dialogue is horrible. The music is horrible. The cutscenes are especially horrible. The UI isn't changed from the console release (read: horrible).

But the combat is rather fun. There's just one big problem I've found with the early game, or perhaps it's just with the storyline in general. It's that there's so much slogging through boring content to get to the good parts. Fighting big monsters is really fun, but doing quests and killing bandits and goblins and other small critters is completely boring.

Often you'll find yourself running through large expanses of land to get to a quest objective, and there's nothing along the way but bandits barely worth killing. This is pretty much what questing is like. 15 minutes of running to get to 5 minutes of actual fun.

This is an RPG only in the sense that you're given the mechanics and tools to role-play, but you have to completely make up your own canon. There's practically no story to facilitate role-playing. If you're looking for an RPG, this probably isn't a good choice. On the other hand, if you're just about the action, then perhaps you'll find value in Dragon's Dogma. Just be prepared to slog through the first bit to get to the good parts.

There are really awkward keybindings, such as backspace to confirm changes (really?). The menus have a lot of unnecessary pauses, such has a 2 second modal dialogue saying "Game is saved". Saving options takes nearly 10 seconds (how?). The game syncs with a server whenever you sleep at an inn, and it takes another 10 seconds. The menus are extremely console-ish with its giant fonts, overuse of icons, and lists containing only three elements at a time. Performance is great however, as it should be for a game of such fidelity.

Generally I'm having fun with it though. I'd recommend it, but I also recommend that you do much more research into this game than you normally would. There are a lot of reviews looking at it through rose-tinted 2012 glasses, so beware and be more discerning about their opinions.