Recent reviews by JokingJames2

It's kind of like Dota 2 But Boosted except it's not dota and instead it's vampire survivors

You can play an adventurer and grab someone by the neck while pulling out all their teeth

I picked this up because I was feeling nostalgic for this game (sorry to anyone realizing this game is old enough to feel nostalgia for) and was curious to see how much has changed after ten years of active development. I last played in 2014 back when Prisms were the new highest tier of building. At first I was excited because I could see new higher tiers of buildings to unlock and even some new gameplay mechanics in the form of the building minigames. Sadly the game stopped impressing me with new content pretty quickly, and I ended up realizing that in actuality not much had really changed with the game after ten years. Old mechanics that were never particularly fun are also still present and haven't really been reworked either.

Overall I'd say the incremental genre has evolved past Cookie Clicker. It's historically significant and interesting for popularizing the genre, but other incremental games are going to give you a better overall experience.

This might be the most well-executed form of "type whatever you want" as a gameplay mechanic I've seen yet. The Cryptmaster has a staggering number of words in his vocabulary that he responds to when you type them in, and I was surprised at how many things certain NPC's will respond to as well.
The game involves a lot of word games and riddles, but there are accessibility options to tone it down if that's something you might struggle with. There's even a turn-based mode to account for people who might have trouble typing abilities in during combat.
I highly recommend for a unique, funny, and technically impressive experience.

Short version: CTC and CTC2 are classic flash games definitely worth checking out. I can't say with certainty that these invented the "throw things at buildings to destroy them" genre, but they do predate Angry Birds. I hadn't heard of Crush the Castle Adventures before, but it's also decently fun and provides a lot more content to this bundle.

Long version: Out of the three (five counting player packs) games here, I think CTC2 (and CTC2PP) hold up the best here. CTC1 is pretty basic, but it's from back when the very concept of a physics game was novel. CTC1PP pushes the first game to its limits difficulty-wise, with a few levels that can be pretty frustrating if you're going for all golds. CTC2 is not terribly difficult, but captures the "stomping on sand castles" feeling the best, in my opinion, with CTC2PP being the same with just more levels to play.
CTCA I had never heard of or played before, and while I was certainly glad to have more CTC content, I can't help but feel it was a regression from CTC2. First of all, in CTCA you are assigned a certain number of shots of certain ammo types per level, it's not like the previous games where you get to pick whichever ammo you want once you've unlocked it. Secondly, in addition to being limited by what ammo is assigned, the ammo types weren't as satisfying and interesting as previous entries, I felt. The acid flask is gone entirely, the inflatable ammo is just frustrating, and the soul reaper ammo might be the worst mechanic in the entire series. Thirdly, CTCA has some real problems as far as its difficulty curve. CTC and CTC2 have some frustrating levels, but CTCA bounces back and forth between levels that you gold medal on your first try without even really thinking and levels that you'll end up restarting 20+ times trying to get the perfect shot the game is expecting of you. CTCA had me thinking that some levels were only playtested once, and the developer happened to get lucky first try in the play test, and then they decided it was good to ship. Some specific examples are Pinball, probably the worst level in the whole series, Witch hunt, which feels like even the creator didn't know what the intended solution is supposed to be, Heavy Metal, again I don't really know what the intended solution here is and just eventually got lucky, and Reverse Bunker Buster, which I swear requires a frame-perfect input to get the exact right angle to actually complete the level.
Still, for all my gripes, CTCA was fun enough and added some value to the bundle so I'd still say it's worth it. Just bear in mind that if you're going for full completion there will be some levels that you'll be restarting and just praying to get lucky on.

Kingdom Hearts 2 has screwed us again! Shin Megami Tensei would never take advantage of our innate gullibility.

Actually one of the best survival crafting games in a long time, and it has co-op to play with your friends. While you might describe it as "half life if it was survival crafting" this is anything but derivative, putting one of the most unique spins on survival crafting I've seen in a while. You aren't picking up sticks and stones to combine into an axe to cut trees down here, instead your basic resources are office supplies and laboratory instruments.
The devs have also been good at communicating and keeping players up to date on what's planned and a general time frame for when to expect updates, which is always great for an early access title.

Persona 5 was so good they made this prequel to it

I actually liked this way more than Getting Over It

A cute, fun little game about playing chess with some rule twists. The less you know going in, the better. Short, but appropriately priced.