Recent reviews by Carson

A charming little eggventure with epic music, memorable moments, and lil guys. What more can you ask for?

i've launched this about 12 different times in the span of the past few years and i've somehow accumulated 1000 hours so it's probably a crypto miner

Let me start by saying that I adore this game... And can't stop coming back to it despite all of the gripes I have, and for a good reason... But it really puts a sour taste in my mouth that the game is as unapologetically difficult as it is, and with the options that the game currently presents, I cannot recommend it in good faith in its current state.

I have nearly 7 hours in the game and have been playing on the intended "Mastery" mode instead of "Permakeep", as the fun I personally gain from the game purely lies in the roguelike aspect of it. I've also been playing on the "Normal" difficulty, although I typically like to play other Behemoth games such as Battleblock and Pit People on "INSANE" after finding "Normal" too easy.

HOWEVER, in this game I have not yet wanted to increase my difficulty because I find the game impossibly difficult. I have made it to the boss room of the first mission (what is essentially the first floor of the run) only twice and have gotten my ass handed to me nearly every other game incredibly early. And the game has actively discouraged me from wanting to make it any easier since my only options are to remove the roguelike elements I love or to remove myself from the leaderboards which feels very unfair.

Heart drops being incredibly rare and not being reliable finds at the shop means that losing 1 or god forbid 2 lives means you've likely already lost your entire run, which discourages wanting to play the next level when you know you have no chance with 0 hearts when there isn't a heart on your map.

I also don't understand boss encounters in normal levels *at all*. They appear for me to bring them down to 90% HP (since that's all I can possibly do taking every single opportunity I can to deal damage) and then kill me and leave. I have never been able to COME CLOSE to killing one and those encounters serve only to take one of my lives and then get me back to collecting intel.

Keybot levels are also incredibly frustrating as 99% of the time the keybots are flying around at the top of the map and can only be reached by riding a flying enemy up and then firing downwards some more to reach it. They are very slippery so they will escape your reach very easily and each wall will take all of your lives nearly every single time, basically serving as a guaranteed run ender.

People have suggested that the game is easier when played with friends. Also I would recommend online but there have been issues of "servers being down" and when you play online with random people you all share the same screen for some reason which makes the game far less enjoyable when you're fighting for screen space with people you don't even know. My other option would be to play with friends but unfortunately my friends and I are adults in gamedev who have very little opportunities to make time with each-other.

I think in 2023 it sucks to play a game (especially one that I really enjoy) that hits me with an impassable "skill issue" wall, and treats the easier game settings as the "friendly" option with less functionality which makes me feel like the game is making fun of me or actively discouraging that playstyle. It would be much better if there was an accessibility menu where you could change the enemy damage multiplier from x0.25 - x2, with lower values granting you a lower score and higher values granting higher scores for those who want the challenge. You could also change the enemy health multiplier, player damage multiplier, player max health, ect. All modifying your scores in various ways to make sure everyone can participate on the leaderboards at whatever skill level they are most comfortable with, and also allowing people to fine-tune their game to get the perfect level of beatable, yet challenging.

In all, I really hope Behemoth at least considers a balancing patch which decreases the overall difficulty and potentially addresses the other issues I've voiced. But what I would appreciate the most is an accessibility update with the options I mention in the paragraph above. It really does go a long way for gamers of all skill levels and even serves to be a good feature for people who are really good and want to push themselves further. I will update this review as time goes on and updates are released for the game. I really hope to recommend the game in the future :)

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TL;DR - Despite loving the game, its extreme difficulty and odd balancing make it hard to recommend. The game could benefit greatly from an accessibility menu to adjust all sorts of difficulty settings, which would allow players of all skill levels to enjoy and compete on the leaderboards in harmony. Hopeful for a future update that addresses these concerns and I will update this review accordingly if necessary.
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Having only played the first world so far, this is one of the most faithful reimagining and most labour of love I have seen put into a remake. It captures every essence of the original game and takes it to the next level with it's fantastic presentation and its top-notch additions. This is a must-buy if you enjoyed BIT.TRIP RUNNER and is definitely the definitive version of the game if you haven't played the original yet :)

UPDATE: I have since 100% the game and unlocked all the achievements. What a ride! Left me wanting more and thankfully it doesn't stop coming with the Level Editor! Choice Provisions have released the first update recently which included some new songs for the editor as well so I think it's safe to assume there are only more to come :)

This game is really REALLY good! Many people will be coming in with the immediate comparison against Rhythm Heaven and I personally did the same and would say it hit the mark most times! It really knew how to capture a lot of that classic Rhythm Heaven charm, while also diverting and doing it's own things.

Only major gripes are the following:
- Some practices had nearly the identical song to the opening of the scored/hard modes, which is a little jarring.
- The spaceship dream seemed a little boring but had a nice song.
- You *seemingly* cannot use custom songs in the editor (This is fine if by design however)
- You can't change the transparency of the visual cues in the practice mode (I like it, it's just too distracting so it's hard to see what the in-game cues actually are)
- The Morning (Final Remix) felt like any other ""Remix"" but with all games being used instead of the games from that Night. I know this is a Rhythm Heaven comparison, but I would have liked more of a medley of all the games played to that point, but I know this is a tall order.

This was a fantastic game and I can't wait to come back to get all the perfects and maybe even attempt a blindfolded run :)

This game is pog and you should play every game by Fred Wood. Man's a legend 🙌

This game is very pog bc it u have a grapple and are a dog

(I received NYKRA by pre-ordering the game)

UPDATE: There are reasons to believe that ENDESGA is shipping NYKRA in an unfinished state. There are dataminers in the community who are lead to believe there are currently only 5.5/7 chapters, despite the game being advertised as finished/complete. I will continue to leave updates as the situation progresses, but as of now, nothing is confirmed.

NYKRA is a visually gorgeous game, with sound design that will make your ears tickle with excitement. But that's all the game has proven itself to be for me. The characters are not incredibly interesting, the story moves *way* too quickly for me to follow, there are several poor game design choices, and the bugs/crashes at launch were completely mishandled...

15 minutes into the game, the main character has a panic attack. During this, a cutscene plays out, wanting you to empathize with the character you were only introduced to minutes prior. This felt extremely forced and discouraged me from wanting to follow along with the story. Each cutscene that followed typically contained a massive lore dump that was impossible to follow along with, especially considering the fact that you can't pronounce half of the things the game expects you to remember. (Please don't get me started on the made-up language)

This game also suffers from the oldest mistake in the book, over-scoping. This game has so many different ideas, systems, core mechanics, and more jammed into it, as if it has something to prove. I would have much preferred if the game was no more than a walking simulator with a rich, involved story (which is what I ASSUMED the game was from it's 8 years of marketing). Instead, the game gives you a combat weapon 10 minutes in that you use once to break a few crates, and then only ever use for later "puzzles". Each "puzzle" is straight forward and only has one outcome as there are no moving parts, which leads to both the combat system AND the puzzles feeling shoehorned in. It also kept me on my toes the entire game, waiting for the combat portion of the game to arrive, but it never did.

Another result of over-scoping has to be the AI created for your companion EO. Instead of having your AI companion follow you around with A* pathfinding like any other game would, ENDESGA decided to create a MACHINE LEARNING NEURAL NETWORK (!!!) that is absolutely braindead and turns the game into an absolute drag beyond obtaining EO. Any time you leave EO's range, they will sit in place and REFUSE to attempt to look for you, and you have to constantly backtrack throughout the same room multiple times just so they will follow you. It's not required for every room, and you can outrun EO and enter the next room to have them teleport back to you. However, if you choose to leave EO behind and then go through the entire room to find out you needed EO, you have to then backtrack all the way back to the entrance just to struggle to get it back to where you were. It's not remotely interesting of a mechanic, and is incredibly sluggish in practice. (EO's machine learning is also reset after every save and quit, so you need to re-train it every time)

Finally, the bugs. I'm writing this a few days after launch and have been unable to progress any further as a result of the developer mismanaging their priorities. Two updates have dropped since I have been locked out of progressing, each update acknowledging the game-breaking bug, but not fixing it. ENDESGA claims that the issue will be fixed by the weekend, and didn't fix it now as they "had to do things in a priority-order". I would think that a game-breaking bug that PREVENTS PROGRESSION in a STORY-BASED GAME would be at the top of the priority list, but alas, here we are. I know better than anyone that bugs like this can't be easily fixed in 2 days time, but I would rather have some transparency from the developer instead of the issue being flat out ignored. For a game that crashes as much as it does, having an unskipable intro is infuriating. But hey, at least the game can be played in windowed mode now... right?

All in all, NYKRA is really impressive in many different ways, but falls flat when it comes to it's ability to tell a captivating story and have meaningful gameplay. I will update my review if/when bugs are fixed and issues are addressed, but will ultimately not recommend it to anyone who is expecting anything more than big lore dumps they can't comprehend, and confusing game mechanics that are either unexplored, or over-scoped.... He also tried to copyright a colour palette.

turnip pog

A fantastic roguelike that will forever influence the creation of future roguelikes. This is the epitome of perfection.