Recent reviews by Naughty Sparkle

I played "Tell Me Why" because it was free during June. Honestly, I wouldn't have played it otherwise, and I would've missed out on a great story.

The story resonated with me deeply, especially as someone who grew up in a difficult home environment. The psychic bond between the twins felt relatable; while my sibling and I don’t have a literal psychic connection, we do share a deep understanding of each other.

The inclusion of LGBTQ themes, particularly having a main character who is trans, added to the story. However, it wasn’t without flaws. In Episode 1, Tyler often overshadowed other characters, with a lot of focus on educating the player about trans issues. While I understand the intention, I wish there had been more trust in the player's ability to grasp these themes without so much exposition.

As the game progressed, the focus shifted. Episode 2 started with the focus on Tyler but was passed to masterfully Allison, and Episode 3 was primarily about Allison. This shift was good, providing her character with the spotlight she deserved, though more foreshadowing could have helped.

The supporting cast needed more development. Michael(I barely remember their name, was it Michael?), for instance, felt underdeveloped. His character was more told about than shown, and his voice acting didn't leave a strong impression. I didn’t dislike him, but he felt like a cardboard cutout, which was disappointing.

On the other hand, the twins were fantastic. Allison's voice actor is a veteran, and Tyler’s actor, despite limited previous credits, delivered a strong performance. There were some rough spots, but when it mattered, they nailed it.

Should you play this? If you're looking for a raw, messy human experience, absolutely. The story is chaotic and doesn't wrap up neatly, which feels true to life. I’m satisfied with my playthrough and probably won't revisit it, but it was a worthwhile experience.

While this is probably the most disliked Resident Evil because it's plot is magical, I do enjoy the game... WHEN IT WORKS. While this works on Linux, and but it is very unstable in co-op. Frequent crashes, de-syncing, randomly getting disconnected. But again, when it works, it is dumb fun.

Now I have played the game for 38 hours at the time of writing, my opinion and hunch of the game has been more confirmed. I did enjoy Watch Dogs 2 quite a lot, but it seems that developers took wrong lessons from the game. Since almost every mission can be completed with a spider bot or using a cargo drone to put yourself in more advantageous position. The setting looks charming, but there is not much here to enjoy. Since every mission has lower stakes as you can just send a spider bot to do the mission. If it gets caught and destroyed, you just need to wait around 30 seconds to try again. Though going in with the operative isn't a challenge either.

The operative mechanic is an idea that sounded better on the paper. But, as I began to use it more, and having a bunch of recruits, it loses its meaning. Some operators are better than others, which is obvious as you can recruit anyone on the street. But due to the mechanic, a lot of aspects from progression are lost. Since there are tech upgrades, and infiltrator spider bot is the best one, there isn't much point in upgrading weaponry or getting all the upgradeable tech toys. Hitmen, Spies, Albion, Prestige operatives have good weapons, which makes weapon upgrades kind of useless, and infiltrator spider bot makes all other tech toys are useless. Switching operators serves more as a continue line of mission kind of thing.

Taken out or getting jailed isn't an issue. Since if you have crap load of operators, just if they get caught, just keep dumping more into the mess. Initially it seems a cool idea, as recruitment was an interesting thing you had to do, but eventually you have enough of them. They don't really get kidnapped or somehow impeded. That happens rarely.

Since throwing operators into a mess isn't an issue since the AI of the enemies is poor. First you get into bouts of hand-to-hand brawl, until someone escalates into gun use. But, since the brawl is just counterattack until you win and escalation can be taken care with disrupt/distract and knockdown, there are traps all over the place to activate, again it isn't an issue. That is because the enemies do not really see stuff happening across the room. Not much alerts them. Spider bot can cloak itself, and instant take-downs are easy to manufacture.

The game's biggest issue is due to the operative mechanic, it scraps any sort of natural progression and comes at a great expense to the story. Pretty much everyone's personality is a smarmy, sarcastic jerk. Conversations between the operator and some NPCs are a perfect example of how wooden they are. There is a lot of voice acting with few actors, so you hear the same voice come from a different character a lot. Same lines recited, and Bagleys writing sometimes is grating. He has good lines but, that sarcasm and comedy could be sometimes toned down as the story poises interesting questions.

The story has different interesting questions what it asks. What if you could upload someone's consciousness and turn it into an AI? What if you had chips that can kill people with a snap of a finger and use it to enslave them? There are interesting questions, but since no characters has personality beyond smarmy jerk the exploration is left really shallow, and it is left as Evil People bad, and you must stop it. Sure, they need to be stopped, as they are bland villains themselves.

There is interesting stuff there, but it is a bland grindy mess. Something seems to have gone wrong during the development. I can't really recommend it, as how bland it is. The bloodline DLC somehow highlights that how much a storyline can aid the game with interesting characters. That DLC is worth to play through, but unless you get this really cheap and know that there are big issues with the game. Sure, go for it. But even in sale, there are a lot more better games to play. Watch Dogs 2 should be in your shopping cart, as it has similar themes but closer to reality.

I played Shenmue 1 on Linux using Proton compatibility without encountering any issues. Controls were smooth during gameplay, but quick-time events can be frustrating due to occasional input failures. Dialog voices sounded a bit crunchy, but it wasn't a major issue for me. There is an audio restoration mod, but I decided against using it. Shenmue is a unique blend of investigative gameplay and fighting elements, but the fighting part is minimal. There is a training area for it, but practicing moves isn't really that useful for learning how the fighting system works. While enjoyable, it's definitely an acquired taste. I wish there was a skip cutscene option and better responsiveness for quick-time events. I'd recommend watching gameplay footage before purchasing.


EDIT:
I have almost played the Shenmue 2 to the end (I just quit it just got not enjoyable for me), but I think I have a clear idea what this is. And it works flawlessly with Proton. The problems of the game come from the game itself. The QTE's are about as responsive as they were in the first one, and the problem that I have with the fighting system are way more pronounced. Shenmue 2 is stretched out, and the second half of the game really drag on. But it works, and you get to carry over your things from Shenmue 1 so that is cool.

The game is fun, however it feels like it is missing something. As the game is, it is good. The graphics are clearly the place where a lot of love and care has been put into. The narrator is great, overall presentation is frickin' awesome but, the game desperately needs two things. A sense of progression and music.
Like, sure you get weapons and armor quite regularly but, aside from that the game-play stays the same. Learn patters and hope you don't mess up. Even though at the time of writing this I haven't finished the game yet, but I do feel like it needs something more. The map opens up but, I know there may be a armor piece or weapon to discover when I go there. But, I just can't shake the feeling that there should be more to this. Finding a boss to kill it and getting really nothing interesting in return just isn't really a reward of its own.
What I mean by lack of music that there isn't really music. Just ambient sounds, and creature sounds. There are few places where there is music, but that is about it. It needs music. Exploring feels a little bit hollow when there is no track to go alongside it.
But with all that said, the rat is fun to control. Moving around and slashing foes is fun, but I do wish there was bit more to it.
What is great about this style of game is that I can pretty confidently say that this is quite safe to buy. You will be doing the same thing from hour 1 to hour 5, but it is harder. So, if you buy this and read this review, and decide to give it a go. If the first hour isn't fun for you, refund this.
Personally, I am gonna keep playing this to finish. But, the game is on the harder side and I play on medium. In my opinion I do think it is hard to squeeze more hours out of you, to cover for lack of content. But that is my opinion.
Edit: I have played through the game. I had to start a new save file with easier difficulty, as the default or "recommended" difficulty is bit too much for me and one boss had me stumped. I wish there was some way of customizing it as the middle difficulty was way is too hard for me, and I don't have time to bash my head against the wall and try something over and over again. But, the easy difficulty was too easy.
However, with that said it was worth experiencing. And I can say that I have no interest in playing in harder difficulty, seeing what was the last boss move set. I do wish there was more to this game, but as it is. It is fine.

After writing this revamped review, I played through the main quest, some of the side quests and a one faction quest. And, while I stand by what I said previously, it is not all doom and gloom. While the story, writing and presentation makes the world flat and not lived in and implications of things in the game universe, there is something there gameplay wise. When you get powers and grind some of them, there is sort of this rough fun shooting game there, that is diminished by the other bad choices they made.
***
I decided to give Starfield another try,and it has been some time since I touched it last. Maybe I was unfair when I initially played it, maybe modding has 'saved' Starfield, or maybe I was just in a bad mood.

But I couldn't quite put my finger on the core issues the game had at the time. I did pick a couple of mods to improve my journey, but I will come back to modding a bit later.

Starfield has a series of compounding issues, where one problem leads to another. Let's break it down:
- The game has vast, empty environments, making fast travel a necessity. However, this highlights the sluggish UI for the map, which is divided into four sub-maps. Galaxy, Star system, Planet and Area Map.
Fast travel exposes a long-standing issue with Bethesda games: it's hard to find content. In the past, they've mitigated this with interesting random events, making the game feel like a personal journey, as in Skyrim, Oblivion, Fallout 3, or Fallout 4.
- Since content is difficult to discover organically, players are forced to rely on the questlines. Unfortunately, this showcases the writing team's weaknesses, making the game feel less like "your journey" and more like a series of dull events. Before the unengaging writing was mitigated by breaking it up with random events.
- With a map that's too large to fill with engaging content, the development team is forced to reuse and recycle existing material. This is a extremely difficult task, even for a large team.
- Questionable design choices come into play, such as the encumbrance system. You're often over-encumbered, slowing your movement in an already empty environment. To make matters worse, you can't fast travel when over-encumbered.
- Additionally, you're often forced to walk slowly due to encumbrance, and you'll also spend time following NPCs, navigating clunky menus, waiting for NPCs to finish conversations, and watching unskippable cutscenes, such as spaceship landings and dockings.
Lastly, mods won't save this game. While there are some quality-of-life and fashion mods available, they don't address the core issues. The game's dull foundation means that even the most passionate modders can't create engaging content that would significantly improve the experience.

I'm glad I didn't spend money on Starfield, as it came bundled with a GPU. I'd advise others to save their money, even if the game goes on sale. There are cheaper, more engaging games available, making Starfield a hard sell.
***
My Original Review:
I did get the game with my GPU, so that is why I ticked the received for free.
Anyway, Starfield is weird. I have a problem finding anything worthwhile to do. Sure there are quests that I can hear, "Oh if only someone would do this or that." and it feels hollow. I think the beginning of the game describes the feeling quite well. You explore a boring mine, with NPCs walking slowly and having to follow them. They spout exposition at you as the game wants you to follow them while walking slowly and you can't match their speed, you are either going too slow or too fast to keep up, and switching to third person the character looks like they pooped their pants. That is how I feel about the entire experience. I feel like I am wasting my time playing this.
This game lacks an identity. It tries to be this grandiose "Oh, space is so vast and exciting." but it doesn't feel like it. It looks like very bland.
The main quest just, is not interesting. I don't care about this relic or artifact. It didn't show me anything that grabbed my attention, just empty space. I wonder if it was a placeholder graphic they just left there.
Then I tried to do the Bethesda thing and go do something else but I was met with vast emptiness and loading screens. I remember being surprised that I couldn't just ride my spaceship to the next location doing space exploration but instead, I had to menu my way there. Doesn't feel like an adventure. It feels like you go from one fast travel point to another. Mostly menuing.
I suppose instead of this grand experience of navigating the stars, this is realistic. It is empty, with nothing interesting to do and navigating menus with holding tab with and spiced up with sprinkling of NPCs that are helpless, and getting a useless ground map. Character creation was cool though. Probably will use it to create portraits for characters in TTRPGs.
May dip my toes couple times into this, but I think I rather do something else. I just am glad I didn't pay for it. The GPU is pretty cool though.

There are two sides to this game, the paid aspect and the kart racing aspect. I have no idea what Gameloft as a studio is like, so I will give them the benefit of the doubt in the microtransaction department.
I will first touch on the kart racing aspect, not the financial side.
Kart racing is good—almost great. This aspect keeps me pulling back, but there is a bit missing here.
The boosting mechanic feels a lot like CTR, but instead of stacking boosts, you build up a boost meter. Once it is full, boost away. But there is slightly more depth to it, as you can keep up the boost longer if you time the boost and drift right. There is absolutely something to master here. But there is a lack of consistency, and I wish there was more feedback. I wish there was a meter when you drifted, that would indicate when you got the boost. At the moment of writing, the only indicator of getting a drift boost is the blue tires, and I found it rather unpredictable when I got the boost.
The tracks are one big downside to this. I find it amazing how a studio is given these IPs to work with and manages to create the most forgettable tracks. I can't recall anything about them, just a few things that should be taken into account when racing them. They keep changing a bit, and every track has a couple variations and different paths. But honestly, it is quite hard to tell them apart, except by the music and maybe the visual style. They are all pretty much the same.
The game looks ok, at least. There's nothing to really mention, but I should stress the music is quite rough. Disney has amazing music, but these are just techno remixes of it. I pretty much, after a couple of tracks, managed to tune it out.
As I said, I don't know much about Gameloft as a studio, and I have no idea how much control they had over the financial model. But it feels quite predatory.
At the moment, I am writing this, it works somewhat like this: You get three to five characters for free at the start. Mickey, Donald and Goofy. It is Season 4 when I write this, and I got Mulan and Jasmine. If you're playing single-player, get ready to play as Jasmine, or whatever the free character of the current season is. Some characters are better than others, depending on what powers they get. This raises some balancing issues, as I think they are giving the worst character away for free. They are at one star not fun to play as, because others have better powers than they do.
But, regardless of whether you're playing single-player or not, the game is quite grindy if you don't put any money into it. You get power up items every so often, and if you have eyes on some character you want to play as, get ready to grind currency and hope you get lucky on the shard drops. I haven't unlocked any characters that I actually want to play as, and I have no idea if their powers are worthwhile. As far as I know, there isn't really a way to outright buy the character you want unless it is in a randomized bundle or in the current season. You can essentially play slots for characters with season currency, which is a crap shoot. As you can get some support characters or characters that you do not absolutely want. The coins are quite pricey if you decide to put money into them.
So in conclusion, fun kart racing is pretty fun if you know what you're getting into. If you enjoy Mickey, Donald or Goofy, you are going to have a good time. As luck would have it, I enjoy playing Donald. I just wish the single-player did not make me play as Jasmine.

EDIT
Having played this more, it is more predatory than I initially thought. There are walls, where you cannot complete some single player races because you don't have a character or, the character is too weak to participate in a race. They are too hard to star up, because you have to open loot boxes (play the slots) to gain shards or grind ranked multiplayer a lot. This is a very grindy game.

This recommendation comes with a heavy word of caution, since I do wish I could just recommend Banners of Ruin.

First, the good stuff. This game is beautiful. The look of the game is carefully designed, it has this dark atmosphere, and it is clear that a lot of love and care has gone into it. The illustrations on the cards are fantastic, and the way the game is able to convey the mood through art and music is great. When you get a run going, you feel like a god. The encounters just melt in front of you, and it feels amazing when you're just able to play your hand, and you feel unstoppable.

Though, then we have to get into the bad stuff. That is WHEN you get a run going, as this game can be a randomly generated nightmare at other times. There is no consistency in what you encounter between runs. You could be completely locked out of the cards you need for the deck, as certain characters are better suited for certain kinds of decks. Sometimes you get the cards you need, but the characters do not get consistent upgrades in the level ups. Sometimes you just do not get the stars to align at all. You MAY get the cards for a good deck, but do not get the character upgrades to play those cards as effectively as you need. And sometimes vice versa. Sometimes you get the character upgrades, but still do not have the right cards.
The encounters work similarly, sometimes you just get into unwinnable fights, and there is nothing you can do about it. You either die, or you win, but mostly you just die.

When I am playing this game, I am reminded of a commentary of a speedrunner. He was commenting on his speedrun of Batman Forever on SNES. While Banners of Ruin is a good game with gorgeous visuals, great music but with unforgiving RNG, I feel like what he said about speedrunning Batman Forever does fit my sentiments about the game. "When you get a run going and everything is going right, you feel like a god."

I didn't play the game for long in my quest to play steam games that I haven't touched. It is gorgeous and the music is really nice. However this game has taught me that, if the game feels bad to play it is hard to keep me engaged. There is built in input lag for jumping, not much direction given. While I could stick around and learn what the game wants you to do, there isn't much purpose when it feels so sluggish. I didn't measure but, it felt like there is significant enough delay between a jump and the jump executing. There is very little indication that the jump was registered, which lead me to falling of platforms even though I was 100% certain that jump was pressed. I didn't get past getting the winter spirit, and didn't feel like I wanted to go on after failing a jump couple of times even though I am certain that I pressed the button.
It is a shame as the game is gorgeous and nice to listen to. But it seems that took priority over the gameplay.

This has been sitting in my library for quite some time and I just got around to giving it a shot. I did enjoy my time playing it and I do feel like this is perfect for a certain type of a player, however that is isn't me.
The game has a wide range of customization options for everything and it really does feel like you can make the theme park your own, however it gets quite overwhelming as you can customize every single aspect of it. Every pizza store, every toilet, every facility, almost everything. Luckily you can just download few steam workshop blueprints and plop those down. It does help quite a bit to just get to the management part of the game, in which I had most issues with.
I would describe this game as difficult because I never felt like I had a handle on things, I did always feel like I was missing something. I was always running low on money, even though it seemed like I was growing. I wasn't sure how to manage the visitors in the park. I had a section that I called water hole, in which there was a clump of visitors that were thirsty and I did try to manage the lines and direct the customers in different sections of the park but they enjoyed the watering hole quite a bit. I did have also a clump of visitors stuck inside of a claw machine somehow.
I don't feel like the game teaches you how to play it, but I do feel like this is a good game. But unless you're willing to read some user guides, and poke around I feel like you're going to have a bad time. I just wanted to sit back and relax, but I was quite often left wondering what I was doing wrong. I was making profits, but never quite enough.