Recent reviews by FallenDemon01

Sea of Stars is a fun and incredibly charming RPG that does a lot of great things in terms of combat mechanics (Especially the lock system and instant character swapping), traversal, and telling a heartwarming story.

While I highly recommend this game, I also felt there was a lot of room for improvement:

• The story had numerous beats that seemed random or didn't really make sense (eg, Resh'an just sort of leaving for no reason, or the bird dude that gets freed and then shows up to help out of nowhere when Serai could have done the same thing)
  
• The ending (Both the final fight and a few areas prior) felt like it had been incredibly rushed through development
  
• The final fight (Elysian’darëlle) was one of the worst/easiest in the game - I was easily able to keep her stun locked basically the whole time
  
• I really wasn't here for the futuristic planet area - It felt very out of the blue/jumping the shark to me
  
• I'm sure a lot of people liked this, but I really didn't like that they brought Garl back in the endgame content. His death was one of the best parts of the game, and bringing him back (Especially with time shenanigans) felt like it ruined that good story/heartfelt moment

V Rising is an incredibly enjoyable game that really sells the fantasy of being a vampire. In the game, you'll build a castle, track and hunt down powerful enemies, and suck the blood of various creatures to get various buffs. I really like the different boss fights, as well as the new abilities they unlock. I found crafting and building to be a bit clunky - The game could really use something like a "shared materials stash" that you can build/craft from imo. There's technically also a PVP element to the game, but I played in a private game, so it was just PVE.

Deep Rock Galactic is an amazing game! I love the variety of enemies, environments, and objectives, though I'll be honest, it took a bit to learn what to do for all the different objectives. The destructible terrain adds a ton to the game, allowing you to basically go anywhere. The constant updates showed the devs really cared about this game, and it's been a ton of fun to play with friends!

Helldivers is an extremely enjoyable extraction shooter. The game initially took a bit for me to get into, mostly due to the chaotic nature of the enemies paired with reduced visibility from things like fog, gas clouds, and explosions, but I eventually figured things out. I love the variety of stratagems, allowing you to tailor your loadout to the specific mission. It's great that you can choose to play against bots or bugs, which both play extremely differently, though I do hope they add other enemies in the future.

Last Epoch is a fun Diablo-style game that I really enjoyed playing through with friends. They added a number of improvements vs Diablo games, like a loot filter, scaling tags on skills, and skill trees for each skill. I skipped through the story since I was playing with other people, so I can't really speak to anything there. I do think the "reforging" items thing is a bit overly complex, but it's cool if you want to min/max.

I'm really not a big fan of walking simulators, but What Remains of Edith Finch is a really solid game. It's short, it tells some powerful stories, and it has some innovative, varied mechanics that kept me interested the whole way through. It's really well done and has some great, creative ideas.

Dave the Diver is an extremely enjoyable game! The first time I picked it up, I couldn't put it down for 7 hours. It's charming and fun to play, and it's constantly unlocking new mechanics that keep it fresh even 15+ hours in.

Just Shapes and Beats is a fun little game of listening to great music and dodging things in typical bullet hell fashion. It's a great little game to play with a friend, and the checkpoints help to make it not so frustrating when you lose.

Songs for a Hero had potential, but it could have been polished up quite a bit. The "reactive singing" gimmick was unique and cool at first, but it grew stale pretty quickly and wasn't super well done in terms of lyrics or how reactive it was (Though it didn't help that the game was mostly linear). The platforming and level design were pretty bare-bones and unpolished - There were a lot of annoying mechanics (Especially in the desert level) and "so close" jumps that could have been greatly improved. I did like a lot of the humor in the game though.

Enemy Mind has a really clever main mechanic - You can take over any enemy ship. The game encourages you to constantly use this mechanic, as each ship only has a limited amount of ammo. I didn't get very far in the game, but the concept is unique and was enjoyable for the bit I played it.