Recent reviews by Katros

An interesting little roguelike card battler game. While the combat itself is unique and pretty fun, I feel like there's room for improvement, specially in regards to the map. As of the writing of this review, you have a linear path in each location, which then leads a random selection of encounters, with or without modifiers, and a healing spot to recover health or increase your max health while healing a smaller amount.

Healing spots are scarce, and there's no other way to regain health besides using them, which becomes an issue in Salem, the third location, where certain enemies become quite trigger happy with 17-20+ damage per shot. I think it would be to the game's benefit to introduce more events in maps, such as a doctor that you pay X amount to heal X amount of health or that you could even buy consumables from for different effects. Perhaps even someone you can buy X shields from, usable in one battle.

I believe it would also be beneficial to add a spot or another that allows you to save at least SOME cards you picked up, because as it stands, building awesome decks or just collecting specific cards to try for a specific build you think would be cool, only to lose every last one of them when you die is quite annoying. Which isn't to say I think death should be consequence free, it's just that, with how little there is to explore right now, besides the combat and purchasing cards, it just feels as though my progress is being ripped away from me while there is very little I can do about it besides getting really lucky with my draws after a certain stage.

Additionally, I think there should be a "Rules" menu to remind you how things work, as the explanation of how the game works only shows up once when you boot it up the first time. I am giving it a thumbs up right now as there is unfortunately, no middle ground option, and I won't say I don't recommend it, as it's not a bad game. Just has undeveloped ideas, which you're not paying for.

All in all: unique concept for combat, centered around setup and combos, but underexplored setting and ideas, mainly those predominantly associated with the game's genre.

The most fun I've had with a movement shooter in a while. Excellent visuals, great soundtrack, satisfying sound effects for every weapon, witty one liners, and MULLETS. The game has it all.
There's even a button just for giving the player an interactive experience of opening up a big game box with all the goodies inside as though you were actually in the 90's unboxing your new acquisition, which is a very specific kind of novelty that you'll spend 3 minutes on at best, but one that I appreciate nonetheless.

I'd also like to highlight the fact that despite the game being built around randomly generated levels, you can still turn on a switch that makes it so the levels follow a specific order, as well as a general timer for a speedrun, as opposed to having to rely solely on each chapter's individual timer.

This game also marks the quickest I've ever aimed for 100% achievements, at roughly 5 days.

Though I do have a few criticisms. One of them being that the levels look a tad similar to each other. Even if makes sense that the scenery looks similar, on account of the game taking place inside one individual building, the fact still stands that it IS a videogame, so some rules can be bent. I also think that there should be more enemies in the game, since after a while it can feel a bit too repetitive, specially in Survival Mode and it's variants. While I am in the topic of Survival, the voice line regarding new records still plays regardless of whether or not you actually got a new high score or not, and even overlaps with other lines if you press play before it's over.

I also believe that stackable upgrades should actually stack in the upgrades menu, as opposed to stealing multiple slots all to themselves, which just clogs up the table, and ruin builds.

The Railgun and Plasma Guns look too similar to one another, given how distinct every other weapon looks in the game, it irks me that these two in particular are near identical, specially when they both play very differently. I also think that there should have been some more variety between the aforementioned weapons upgrades as well as Rifle, since as it stands, the Rifle is pretty much preferable to the Plasma Gun almost every time on account of both of them receiving an infinite ammo upgrade, but the Rifle benefitting from more damage, as well as a grenade at maximum level (even if I do have grievances with it, as detailed below).

Speaking of, said grenade I feel should be set to a button (perhaps middle mouse button, since it serves no function in this game), and not a random timer, as the times it's shot at nothing tend to outweigh the times it's made to actually hit something.

I also appreciate the fact the developers have since added more game modes for further replayability, including, but not limited to, making the Sniper segment playable separately, which was a weird ommission from the base game. (The new voice lines are much appreciated as well!)

In conclusion, if you like running against a clock that's constantly trying to kill you while you slice, shoot, dash and kick those DAMN robots to the sound of 90's inspired tracks, while pondering about the effects of excessive consumerism on "retro humans" and the commodification of death, then you might want to give this a shot. Just be prepared to die and to be made fun of for it by a sassy anime lady... A LOT.

I absolutely LOATHE, having to give such an amazing game a negative review. While the several QOL additions and bug fixes in the recent update are very much welcome, I cannot condone the usage of AI upscaling. Killer7 is a game with such an immersive, bizarre atmosphere, and the AI upscaled textures, and SPECIALLY the FMV cutscenes, just ruin said atmosphere.

The cutscenes in particular now look like the result of a rushed patch job, as opposed to professionally animated cartoons.

Edit: AI upscaled cutscenes were made optional in an updated earlier today (07/11/2024) and additional bugs were fixed, here's to hoping they give the textures the same treatment.

The first two games are pretty RNG heavy, but the others are otherwise fun. The gold balancing could have been better though, as things get expensive quite quickly. Either way, I'd recommend getting the game on sale.

Changing my review back to positive since Valve has FINALLY taken measures to combat the bots. Here's to hoping they continue the good fight and didn't just do this to shut people up momentarily.

I really wanted to like this game, but unfortunately the grievances I have with it bring me a lot of mixed feelings. Unlike other beat 'em ups that I've played, this one feels very stiff around some edges.

For instance, while in other games you have a special move to rely on that causes you to know enemies away from you, in this game, it's not always reliable, since you can get hit and in that window you'll likely not be able to use it in between hits.
The game has you use guns, which is an interesting and fresh idea, but the way the characters go about unholstering and shooting feels a tad robotic, which deters a bit of it's ability to be used for juggle combos. I feel the game could have use a button combination or a dedicated grab button for this reason too. There isn't as big of a window of invincibility during throws as usual, so it'd really help if you didn't get shoved onto a grab animation when close and get hit for it. All in all, I didn't feel the freedom to attack however I please/defend myself reliably as I do in other games of the genre.

Enemies also lack variety. They just walk a bit, stand around, and when it's not too much of an inconvinience, they hit you once or twice and laugh at you. The most variety I saw on the first two levels was a girl that swings two axes, a guy that blocks most attacks, and a dude that swings his knives for half a screen. For the most part, enemies just walk around trying to surround you but then seem confused on how they got that far and wait a while to hit you. It's fun to beat on tons of enemies at once sure, but now when they don't really try to do anything about it.

The levels also seemed to drag on for a while, which the loading screens didn't help. So many loading screens.
The Outrun style minigame was fun though.

The bosses so far seemed to be in the realm of "Big gun with weapon" so that's not all that interesting either.

I did enjoy how more brutal the main characters seem to be. Usually the protagonists are just noble people fighting for a just cause, but the team here has no qualms with threathening the thugs, even with their own weapons, which is a nice change of pace.

I really wanted to like this game since it tries to do some new things that I personally enjoy and I really like it's aesthetic and how it tries to make the most out of it's comic book presentation for the cutscenes, but unfortunately it's just a few quality of life improvements away from being great. I don't really want to say I don't recommend the game, but Steam has no mixed option, so I'll have to leave it like that.

For me Schwarzerblitz ranks #1 in "Games that take inspiration from Tekken that I enjoy more"

It's got a solid cast of memorable original characters, loads of stages and tons of game modes to go through, which are unprecedented things in the realm of fighting games in this day and age.

Not only that, but it features an interesting storyline that for once, doesn't revolve around a tournament, but the cataclysmic events that started it all and that eventually lead to something even greater. Inbetween those, you'll find character centric shorter episodes, which I am so glad for since the characters of Schwarzerblitz have such fun personalities.

Another thing I can praise the game for is that the Combo Trials are actually intuitive and don't feature arbitrary combinations that screw everything up and that I will ignore in actual gameplay since doing them slightly differently results in the same effect.
For once I actually found myself using the combos I learned in the Trials and found myself looking to them for guidance, specially since you also get an explanation of what the character's general playstyle is like and what some of their unique tools are. And not only that, but it your inputs also swap directions when you do, including when you check the move list in the Pause Menu! Which is such a simple thing that helps tremendously and yet so many fighting games ignore in favour of just dropping some variant of: "*Assuming you're facing right".

That in turn means this is one of the very few fighting games where I actually completed every single trial and had fun doing so.

Outside of unlocking more characters and stages, you also unlock additional costumes by playing the story and different modes, as well as a biography segment for your chosen fighter upon completing Arcade Mode, that offers even further insight into the characters' origins and motivations. Many fighting games wish they had lore as detailed as Schwarzerblitz.

Outside of Arcade, Versus, Story Mode and Training, you got Survival, Time Attack, and a couple of other unique modes that you should definitely unlock and try for yourself, as well as cheats to mess around with, such as giving everyone giant heads or turning them into wireframes and other fun little distractions that games used to have.

On top of that, it has workshop support for characters and stages! Which I personally think is fantastic, since the game is already so fun on it's own.

Overall, a free game like this has no business having such a complete package, which I will never tire of highlighting puts many modern fighting games to shame.

I know this review is quite long, but I just wanted to add as much insight as possible on a lot of fundamental issues the game has.

The game itself is quite fun, and Capcom didn't need to be bullied into adding single player content this time, (though please add Survival Mode) but I cannot in my right mind recommend this game with the absolutely vile monetization in place, which will take up the bulk of this review.

Before I start, for those not in the know, the free currency is Drive Tickets, and the premium currency is Fighter Coins.

I received this game as a gift for christmas, which I am very grateful for, but it still angers me that a 60€ game is THIS stingy with content that's been paid for.

  In previous games, you'd unlock colours by simply playing a bunch of matches. In SF6, it's either 1000 Drive Tickets or 50 Fighter Coins. Considering the smallest amount of coins you can purchase is 250 for 5€, that's roughly an euro a colour. Alternatively, you can spend 1000 Fighter Coins or 6300 Drive Tickets to get colours 3-9 for a specific character. This applies to DLC characters too.
  Things get even more ridiculous with the second batch of costumes. The first one was 50 Fighter Coins per costume, which in the domain of costumes is passable, (though you can unlock those by playing World Tour) but the new ones are 300. 50 less than the price of a character. That means you'll have to spend 12.50€ on 610 coins to even get one, meaning you'll always be left with leftover coins that you'll have nothing to do with.

It's absolutely abhorrent and inexcusable for a fully priced title from a giant company such as Capcom. These prices wouldn't be acceptable even if this was an MMO! Which it seems is what fighting games are desperately trying to be now, if the last two Mortal Kombat games are any indication.

  To even acquire Drive Tickets, you can do ONE daily mission, and ONE weekly mission that gives you 500 each, and it's not even guaranteed that you'll see a mission that gives out Drive Tickets. This essentially means you'll spend months grinding those just to maybe get a handful of things you want. It's even more insane if you plan on spending your tickets on the "Hub Goods Shop" which sells costumes and quite frankly ugly pins for your Avatar.

  Said costumes show up for a limited time and can cost anywhere from 6000 to 8000 Drive Tickets, and the individual costume pieces seem just so arbitrarily priced. 4000 for one, 2300 for another, 1500... You'll overtake the price of the entire costume in no time by buying individual parts.

  In World Tour itself, you can't even do the most basic level of customization: changing colours on an article of clothing, without grinding. You have to grind for dyes from enemies. And not even a single bottle per colour, no, if you want to make something red, you need 5 bottles of the same colour... It's so pointless and unnecessary, just give people a menu with a colour map, it's worked time and time again.

  On the top of infuriating aspects of World Tour, I cannot, for the life of me understand WHY is it that I can't use special moves with the same directional input but different face buttons (for example, you can't use Gladius (quarter circle forward + punch) and Quadriga (quarter circle forward + kick) simultaneously, the game will simply display a message as if you're trying to use two quarter circle punch moves simultaneously, which means that if you want to dedicate yourself entirely to one character's style, you just CAN'T.
 
So unless you're lucky and your favourite character's moves all have different inputs, good luck mixing and matching with the dumb restriction that prevents you from doing so. (On a side note, that flaw was so ridiculously apparent with Jamie, whose first two special moves that you learn BOTH use quarter circle forward, that it made me chuckle.)

Despite what it may sound like, I want to enjoy the things the game has to offer, I really do. It's just really hard to do so when the game sweats bullets at the mere thought of allowing you to access the most basic of things without asking the player to fork over money or putting some bizarre twist on it.

  Also, 30€ for a season pass, are you kidding me? For four characters and a bunch of Drive Tickets. Yes, they sneak Drive Ticket "bonuses" in the DLC now for a purchase incentive, as if the abhorrent microtransactions weren't insulting enough. On the topic of DLC, 70€ for the soundtrack is also preposterous. Capcom often has overpriced soundtracks, but this game's is more expensive than even the game itself! Let that sink in.

  To somehow add EVEN MORE insult to injury, this game has a Battle Pass. In a 60€ game. Who knows why I am mentioning that so much.
It works about as you'd expect. Tasks on a time limit to enslave your free time and force you to keep playing to not miss out on the goodies you spent your own money on to get a CHANCE to grab even half the stuff. Or just pay MORE money to grab them. Including what I find most ridiculous which is: earning yourself the ability to play classic Capcom arcade games, which you can do on the Battle Hub on rotation, through a menu.
  You spend money, to play the game, so that you can have the ability to play other games through a menu option. Does that not sound absolutely insane? It becomes even more asinine when you consider that there's at least THREE different ways you can permanently acquire said games without resorting to paying a ransom to Capcom. You can buy the individual collections that host those games, and there's also the option of the arbitrarily separated Capcom Arcade Stadiums 1st and 2nd if all you really want is to buy ANY of the games available on the Battle Hub PERMANENTLY, for prices between 1€ or 2€. Hell, Capcom has even given away some of them in the past.

A note about Arcade Mode: I wish we could play the minigames through a menu as SF4 did, and I appreciate the fact we can select to either do 5 or 12 matches. Although I wish Arcade didn't feel like such a footnote. As an example, I played Ken's story, hoping to get more insight into the details of him getting framed for terrorism, and by the end of it I was left wholly unsatisfied since all that happens is Ken pondering if he'll kill JP for messing up his life or not... But he doesn't get any closure. Does he decide to do it and feel like crap because he committed murder? Does he decide not to do it and have JP fix the mess he created as some sweet form of retribution? Does he do ANYTHING AT ALL to change his current situation? Hell if I know, the game sure doesn't, and presents in a fashion that makes it seem as though it really couldn't care less to provide an answer. For the answer? You'll have to read a comic.

  About one of the only things I can praise in this game, aside from the new mechanics and the changes made to some legacy characters that I personally enjoy (even if most I found strange, such as getting rid of Zangief Banishing Flat special move) is the controls. There's finally a game that allows you to manually select different control options, meaning that I, who prefer classic inputs, can play against my brother, who prefers simpler, modern inputs, and we can both enjoy the game our own way. This makes it so people who are less experienced with fighting games/don't play them very often, can enjoy the game without feeling like they're being held back by the difficulty of memorizing the inputs.

  To close this bible sized review, if you're planning on buying the game, consider what I wrote above and check if the game is for you, or if you're better off just playing with a friend that owns the game, or playing any of the previous games in the series.

I have to say the game pleasantly surprised me. I thought I'd drop it after a while but I found myself coming back to continue the story and now here I am writing this review after finishing the game. The dialog is quite amusing and entertaining and if you lose a boss battle, the girls will speak to each other and drop hints on what you should do to win.

There is no leveling up in this game. You just choose which boss to fight first, Megaman style, and as you defeat bosses, your characters will learn new abilities that facilitate encounters. The first half has you choose which 3 Guardians to take to the fight. Whereas after you first fight and defeat Prince Barion, you'll be using all 5 at once. Nevertheless, battles are quite fun and challenging, and only really the final boss felt like there was a bit too much of a luck factor involved. The story is only two chapters long, but has a good amount of depth and got surprisingly dark at times. In my opinion it's just long enough to be fun to go through, without feeling like it's stalling to get more hours out of you.

Outside of the story, you have an Arcade Mode with "Classic", "Free Play" and "Extra" contained within to increase the replay factor.

Outside of the aforementioned Final Boss fight, about my one other gripe with the game is that you can't return to the previous menu if you select the wrong characters by mistake, you either have to surrender or let yourself die, which is more so an issue in Chapter 2 since the game doesn't allow you to retreat there.

As much as I'd love to recommend this title, it's just not very fun, in my opinion. It's very beautiful, I really enjoy the soundtrack and the voxel objects are fun to destroy, as is killing enemies.

However, making enemies explode into bags of sqare Skittles isn't as fun as it would be if the game had more diverse weapons with more punchy sound effects. An issue only applified further by the game's poor sound mixing, even at max (in-game) volume, the sound effects are too quiet. Enemies also have very similar cries when noticing the player, so in combination with the quiet sounds it makes it difficult to tell exactly how far they are from me.

I also do not understand why only select few ranged enemies have ramp up animations, but melee enemies just bump into me.

The first boss was a fun and interesting encounter (which I won't spoil for those that want to play the game), but the subsequent ones being bullet sponges was disappointing, given the precedent set by said first boss.

I will however, praise the game for allowing the player to carry his or her weapons between episodes (something I wish more games of this genre would emulate) as opposed to losing them all when entering a different episode, as well as the lore pieces to read before the start of each episode to set the mood on what to expect and to hype up the player to find new things.

It makes me sad to review this game negatively because it is SO close to being a joy to play, if not for these small grievances that pile up on top of each other to wittle down the experience... Considering these factors, I have hopes the upcoming sequel will be better!