Recent reviews by Mankotron

This game is a great remaster.
The graphics of the backgrounds and the characters are tremendously improved and are just gorgeous.
You can switch to the old graphics on the fly if you want to. The old game looks much worse than I remembered, but it adds some oldschool nostalgia to it.
The story and characters are lovely and well written. It's a great point and click game. Can't wait for the next Reforged Broken Sword game.

It's ♥♥♥♥. Plain and simple.

Minoto > Handler
Hinata > Handler

" WE did it!" - Handler, 2018

Overrated game.
The graphics are great, but that's about it.
The story and the gameplay was very interesting at the beginning and afterwards there is nothing story related that is worth mentioning until you hit 3/4 of the game and still not that interesting.
Without mentioning any spoilers I was about to do the second boring fetch quest from Langston and just quit. It just felt like a waste of time.
The side quest are just bad run-of-the-mill quests. Go back and get artifacts, go back and kill enemies... Unlike sidequests of other games it does not even feel worth doing and somehow it feels more tedious and boring than those of a grindfest MMORPG. Returning to previous sections to reach chests that previously where blocked also feels more like a hassle than a reward. Any other game does this better.

Unlike the weapon upgrade the character/ability upgrades feel mostly weak.
You die with 2 hits which is not a problem per se, but upgrading your health feels worthless until you upgrade it 3 or 4 times because you still die with same amount of hits. It is much wiser to spent the point elsewhere namely in your launch/throwing ability which can one-hit multiple enemies. I did not even bother in spending points in melee, shield, seize or ground slam ability. Most of the time all you need is launch, dodge and occasionally shoot until you can use launch again.

Also most weapons feel useless. Why bother trying close combat with shotgun or trying to do some headshots, when you can just throw something and kill several enemies at once. You can basically just use Grip (semiautomatic pistol) or Spin (automatic) to bridge the gap until your launch is available which is just a couple of seconds.
Once you unlock the Charge form (explotion shots) it feels like the only useful weapon to finish off enemies in terms of efficiency.

The graphics are as mentioned great and the acting is solid. The reflections in some places seemed overdone felt pretty unrealistic (I have not tried it with raytracing off), but that might just be my impression.

Even Cyberpunk 2077 for the broken mess it was and still is was alot more fun than this game.

DJMAX is a fantastic rythm game and with Respect V it's finally on Steam.
This reminds me of the good old days of DJMAX Portable 2 and DJMAX Trilogy (my 2 most played DJMAX games).
I love that the keynote sounds are actually part of the played song (sounds and sometimes even vocals).

The game has a huge and great selection of all kind of songs (K-Pop, Rock, Trance, metal, etc.). The base game alone includes over 160 tracks each with their own music videos and patterns in 4/5/6 or 8 button mode (there is no 7 button mode).
If you use a keyboard you will need 2 extra buttons for the side notes which occasionally appears in certain charts.
On a controller the sidenotes are are mapped on the analog sticks or turntables by default.

Not all songs are available from the start. You get experience points after finishing a song and unlock more tracks as you level up.
Of course, you can unlock new gear and notes, but this time around they are cometics only. You are also able to unlock avatars, plates and titles for your DJMAX profile.
Unlocked music videos and artwork can be viewed under Collection.

The Collection mode is additionally keeping track of your stats and ingame achievements as well as displaying how far or close you are to reaching said acievements and it's associated unlockables.

The other Modes are:

AIR
Playing a random song or use auto play and just listen to them.
While playing in AIR mode you can not get a game over regardless of how many notes you miss. You can also write messages (not real-time) for other players in AIR mode to read.

FreeStyle
Basically pick a song and play.

Mission
Playing songs with certain clear conditions (e.g. cannot miss more than 3 notes, reach certain combo count or score, fading notes, etc.).

Online
This consists of two modes: Ladder and Open matches.

The Ladder mode are 2-player games to climb ranks. Both players are playing the same button mode with a pick-and ban phase.

In Open mode you play with up to 6 other players. The host picks the song, but you are not bound to play the same button mode or difficulty chart as the other players. This is a very enjoyable online mode.

Ranking
This is for viewing the leaderboards.

There is no Arcade mode. It's definitely not a deal breaker and some won't even miss it, but would have been nice if it was included.
Unfortunately, this game is an always-online game due to it's anti-cheat program. So those with an unstable connection might not be able to enjoy this game.

Still, I can highly recommend this game for veterans and newcomers alike.


How great would it be if we could get songs from Superbeat Xonic or Final Fantasy VII in the future?
And please add some of the missing songs from previous games like Beautiful Girl by DJ Keri. Thanks.

Update 22/11/23: It's still fun playing this game.

Great Metroidvania game. It was an absolute joy from start to finish.
The little story was nicely implemented and it was always great to see all the characters from Lodoss in the game.
It has beautiful pixelart, good mechanics and diverse bosses to fight.

Deedlit can switch between 2 spirits (Sylph = Wind and Salamander = Fire) changing elemental properties of your attacks and adds immunity to the element of the chosen spirit. The spirits also let you absorb it's appropriate element to regenerate your MP.

There are plenty weapons to discover. Some are even able to change your attack property to another element regardless of the active spirit (e.g. thunder or dark).
Your weapon options are longswords, daggers, throwing weapons (mid range), spears and 2-handed swords. For long range combat there are only bows.

During the course of the game Deedlit will learn new moves and spells to aid her. The moves typically let you get to parts of the stage that where previously unreachable.

It took me about 8 hours to reach the end. The game left me very satisfied, but it also left me longing for a sequel.

Edit: Thank you for the final update. I will try to get all the achievements soon.

Avoid this game, save yourself money and time. The developers can't even fix bugs that were present since release.
There are other games out there that are much better, basically the majority of games.
I would even recommend Marvels Avengers over this one.

I have only played Monster Hunter games on PSP back then and I am glad they finally released a MH game on PC and PS4.
Game is pretty much self-explanatory. In short: Its a cycle of hunting Monsters to get Equipment, but done perfectly.
There is alot to hunt for and there are 14 weapon types each playing differently.
This game also has a story, but I can't say much about it except that the handler is annoying.
Hunting solo or in a group with friends or/and random players is extremly fun. Made some new friends with this game.
Highly recommended!

PS: Capcom, please release Monster Hunter Rise on PC, too.

I like a a lot of the ideas like a map that you can explore and that you can upgrade the NPCs in the camp.
There are unlockable costumes, but they are timed events. I owned the game before some of these events started, but when I wanted to play all the unlockables were already gone.
Also some mechanics are just bad. The worst is paying 20 HP or something to get 5 random cards from the discard pile back to your deck.
Really, I tried to like the game but this is the most non-fun mechanic. I dont' know what disappointed me more Sacred 3 or this game.

I prefer Slay the Spire and Neoverse by light-years.

This is a great linear horror visual novel.
It's not scary, but the atmosphere is very good and the story is very well written.
The voice actors also did a great job.