Recent reviews by Yui

I was about to start a new XCOM playthrough when a friend told me about this game. I really, really enjoyed it. The missions are more like puzzles, especially if you try to get as many of the bonus objectives as possible. All the characters play so differently that it's really fun to "solve" missions by combining their abilities in interesting ways. There were still points late in my playthrough were I found ability combos that I missed for many hours earlier.
Also, I really loved that the game leaned into the characters' stories. It's not like XCOM, where you can recruit dozens of grunts and you come up with their character if you feel like it. They all have detailed backstories, motivations and pretty cool designs. Following their development throughout the plot was great. The way these (often interactive) character scenes are balanced with the gameplay is awesome. They're great to break up the action and let your brain cool down after a tough mission, but aren't so long or complicated that you're aching to get through them to get back to the gameplay. It's small bits and pieces in between and I think that works really well. Overall it's great both as a strategy game and a story.

Not a big fan of the combat, but everything else is great. Especially the art and music complement each other and make this game a joy to play. The mobility of the character feels great as you unlock more and more abilities. Also the way Ori and the other characters are animated is very cute.

I'm not sure about this one...
On one hand, it has better storytelling than 95% of other games. On the other hand, it just didn't really keep my attention. Maybe it's the repetitive, dated gunplay. Maybe it's the slow pacing. Maybe it's just not for me.
This game has some absolutely insane moments that I enjoyed a lot. But it's also a lot of slowly walking through a forest while being attacked by guys with axes. At the beginning these sections might feel tense and exciting, but after a few hours it's just routine. Overall, I think newer titles by the studio are better starting points if this kind of story telling interests you.

This is a great sci-fi story with many touching moments. It uses the perspective of a dying cyborg on a deteriorating space station to tackle themes of identity, community and mortality. I have played few games that manage to communicate the feeling of being part of a community as beautifully as this one. The many different characters that live on the space station feel very unique and interesting. This makes the choices you make in conversations and missions with them feel meaningful. They bring many different perspectives about the world to the table. The gameplay is simple but interesting by itself, forcing you to prioritize the many tasks on the station as you only have a limited number of actions per day. In the beginning, this system is the most interesting, as you have to balance multiple threats and possible solutions. Taking your time to support another character feels like a meaningful choice, because it's time that you might miss later when running out of money, food and shelter while being hunted by a corporate mercenary and a rogue security protocol.
My biggest complaint is that the game doesn't keep this tight grip on the pace of the game after the opening. This means that there are multiple periods of time where you don't have any time pressure and the only way of failing a task is when you do too many of them at once and can't keep up. This means that the "optimal" way to play is to do them one at a time, but that's boring and breaks the immersion. However, at this point the game had me fully hooked on the characters and its storyline, so I naturally kept pushing forward.
All in all, if you're a sci-fi fan, you should absolutely play this game. It tackles interesting themes in a detailed, creative setting and had me hooked until the end.

What a beautiful game - I love the art and music, I love the puzzles and I love its message.
There are so many small heureka moments when you finally understand something about one of the languages. It really encourages you to think about the symbols and their meaning and how they connect to the people and their culture. Sure, if you think about it, a library could just be a "house of finding"! The puzzles aren't too easy which makes them rewarding to crack but strangely I never got stuck for long periods of time.
I especially liked the conclusion of the game. It beautifully spells out something that you already intuitively learned from studying these people and their languages. It's one of those games where you wish you could play it again as if it was the first time and I really recommend you give it a shot.

I genuinely feel like I'm missing something here that everybody else is getting.
Everyone talks about how fun and challenging but rewarding this game is. My experience is running around mostly empty stages, shooting repetitive enemies until you finally find the teleporter and get to fight a bullet-sponge boss. From everyone's reviews I assume this game gets better, but I've tried it and bounced off twice now.

This game aims to capture the satisfying feeling of driving a great rally stage. It does this in a unique art style with fitting music and lots of distinct cars to pick from. Its initial learning curve is similar to that of other rally games (especially RWD cars take some time if you're not used to them) but it's very fun once you get into the flow. I've spent a lot of time just casually driving events while listening to podcasts.

Thymesia is an interesting take on the combat system of Sekiro and the aesthetic of Bloodborne. There's no need to mince words here, the inspiration is obvious and certainly intentional. If you haven't played both these games, you should certainly do that first. They're both lightyears ahead of Thymesia, both in terms of the amount of content and also its quality.

I don't really have an issue with the game being short - in fact I often prefer a shorter, more focused experience. However, Thymesia has nowhere near the amount of polish I would expect in that case. It's short and feels unfinished. Out of the three levels, there's only one that consists of multiple, distinct areas and a clear sense of progression. It's a challenge to not get lost in the other two due to everything looking the same. Enemies have the same issue, with only a few of them being unique to a specific area.

This is where the combat system saves Thymesia. It's by far the most polished part of the game and the primary reason why I still enjoyed playing the game despite all other flaws. It manages to combine the elegance of Sekiro's parry-focussed system with Bloodborne's aggressive playstyle. Learning to counter the different kinds of enemies was a lot of fun and made up for the repetitiveness. I also enjoyed the bosses a lot. There are two bosses that I would call great, and the rest is also decent. There's only one gimmick boss that frustrated me a bit, but it still felt satisfying to beat it.

The progression is nothing special, just the typical Souls level up afair with a skill tree attached. But not only do you unlock all necessary skills fairly quickly, you can also respec at basically any time which makes the system a bit meaningless. The second part of progression is upgrading your potions. The choice between more potent but slower potions, or fast but weak ones is interesting. However, for me it boiled down to using slow potions for exploration and fast potions for boss fights. The alchemy system that's attached to them is a gimmick.

I'll also say that the ending system did confuse me quite a bit and I could not figure out how to get different endings without the help of a guide. It's a minor thing as the story isn't really why I enjoy the game in the first place, but it's still strange.

All in all: A flawed game with a great combat system. If you're into this kind of game, you'll probably get 12 hours of fun combat out of it, but otherwise it's probably not for you.

It's hard to describe in words how physical this game feels. At the beginning I was wondering how anyone would be mad enough to play this in VR - but after a while it started making sense to me. Thumper immerses you completely by overwhelming you with light, speed and sound, and you can only rely on your instincts and reflexes to react to the mayhem it throws at you. Also, I love the visual design. It feels very alien and intimidating, and it matches the music perfectly.
This is a brilliant take on a rhythm game.

This is a straight-forward narrative about someone wanting to quit the mafia.
It's basically the game equivalent of a short story, and there's not a whole lot of interaction or influencing the plot. Instead, it's about putting yourself in the protagonist's shoes and thereby starting to think about all the story's themes.

For me this game is about peace. Making peace with past mistakes, doing your best to correct them and also making peace with the consequences that you cannot fix. It's kind of sad and short, but that's exactly why you should take an hour or two to play through it.