Recent reviews by Doubbly

Update:
After spending more time with the game it's becoming a little harder to recommend the game without mentioning more of its shortcomings.

I praised the game's level design in my initial review, but have to walk back on that statement just a little now for the game's lack of variety. The first few worlds did an ok enough job at introducing new mechanics and world gimmicks, but the middle section of this game is less original and gets a bit stale.

Something similar can be said about the game's music as well. Even though I'm still a big fan of this soundtrack, it can get a bit one-note. While they have a fairly distinct sound, every song has the same level of intensity and general mood to them. This might in part also be due to the mentioned lack of variety in the game's level design, but the point remains. There are however some neat adaptive details in the music that I find worth mentioning. An example would be the music seamlessly speeding up when there are enemies around and some level sounds matching the soundtrack extremely well.





Initial Review (6,4 hours played at the time):
I'll update this review once I've finished the game, but so far my positive thoughts on this game far outweigh the negative.

Penny's Big Breakaway scratches a specific itch for me that I haven't really seen other games be able to. That being a platformer with fun and NEW mechanics, maybe some of the most consistently nice level design I've seen in platformers in a while, and game feel surprisingly reminds a lot of Sonic (in a good way).

Sadly this game also borrows a bit of the jank of modern Sonic games. I knew it wasn't a great sign when I clipped through the ground and later got stuck on geometry at the very first level. That being said, with a little finesse I've found these issues to become less problematic to better you get at the game.

What's more the game has a lot of appeal in its music and animations. The different levels manage to each feature their own charming songs and visuals largely without getting stale. One personal nitpick about the soundtrack compared to Sonic games is in the omission of per act track variations, especially given how the Levels in Penny's Big Breakaways often include more acts than your usual Sonic Level.

Another nitpick is in the fact the game doesn't allow for rebinding your controls, which makes the qtes at the end of each act quite the mental gymnastics when playing the game with a Switch Pro Controller.

good fun i'd say so far

I can't exactly recommend this Game, but I can't not recommend it either.

First things first, Gris's atmosphere is incredible. The art direction combined with the amazing music and sound design is the number one thing to enjoy about the game. Especially its beautifully hand-drawn animation blew me away.
That said, Gris has just barely enough gameplay to be called a platformer, and yet at the same time, not quite enough story for me to call it anything else. The Story and Gameplay that Gris does have are very well thought out, but I'd argue it still doesn't quite warrant a playtime of 3 hours.

One thing is for sure though, Gris is beautiful!

Having gone into this completely blind it was quickly apparent that the game is targeted at a female LGBT audience, which I am not. Even still, this short visual novel managed to keep my attention with its charming and yet unsettling artwork, likable characters, and decent writing.

There are 4 different endings, which fit the game's complexity and length. Meaning you can play it with all its endings in an afternoon and it won't outstay its welcome. The way it handles replaying the story is also a nice touch.

I would have preferred more dialog specific to certain endings and have minor nitpicks with how the game chooses which ending you get, but overall it was a moving experience that I can recommend you check out.

A small thing that could be improved:

This only really affected my first playthrough, but I think the game should communicate more clearly what clicking on the doors does and what rooms they lead to.
I felt no interest in leaving the main room, which led to the "phone call event" not happening. When I then heard the first direct line of dialog from the roommate, it was already too late to do anything about her (by that point already obvious) death. This would've also been ok, if the game didn't then try to make you feel guilty, by explaining the game's title to you.

Disclaimer: This review is aimed at people who haven't yet experienced the original Steins Gate Visual Novel.

My first experiences with the Game were lackluster, because of the sometimes very sub par animation quality featured in the Game and frequent crashes many of us were experiencing at launch. But now with with the latter of those concerns at least fixed, my general opinion on the Game is more positive than negative.

If you're just unsure if the Game is worth the money, I can reassure you it is. That alone stems from it's exceptional soundtrack and story.

But on the other hand you have to consider this, all of this Games strengths come from the previous versions of this story. And just for me personally, the original version of the VN as well as the Anime that was based on it are both better and more coherent experiences than this Game is.