Recent reviews by Shortchimp

8.5/10
This game was a pretty short, but cute game. I loved a ton of aspects about this game, ranging from the characters and their goofy quests, to the amazing gliding you can do around the island. If I had to complain, I do wish the characters were a bit more deep, as after the quests I just ignored them, which makes sense due to the length of this game, which I beat in basically an hour and a half. It is really hard to hate on this game, as it didn't feel like filler (apart from getting coins for the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ scalper bird for the golden feathers). Was pretty fun overall, and I enjoyed my time with it.
8.5/10

9/10
Intro
SMT III: Nocturne was good, really ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ good. It felt like Persona without the heart... nah Im just kidding but it was a really damn JRPG. This was my first SMT game, and I came from playing all the Persona Games except 1, and I went into this thinking it will be a hard as nails JRPG, and damn did it nail it. This game is simply hard as nails, while also have really dark themes, as each side have desperate reasons that are super polarizing of viewpoints as they want to form the new world their way. Even with this, the game in general was a treat to play through.
Gameplay
The gameplay of this game is def the best part of this game, with press turn, A.I being super ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ tough to fight against, and the difficulty made this game so damn good. I played through this game on hard, and it was really fun to struggle through each fight (even if dying was super damn common and I lost a ton of hours cause of it LOL). Having the threat of losing all of your precious grinding time, finding the next save point as any encounter can kill you in one turn, the dread when you miss, or the enemy crits felt so damn good, esp when you hit them back. If I had to criticize an aspect of the game, overworld demons would had been a bit better then random encounters, but it wasn't that bad of an issue since you had items/skills like reduce encounters to low-level demons, so if they don't matter in terms of leveling, you can just avoid them. The issue I do have tho was that it was super easy to get lost in this game, I did do the TDE ending, but it still was confusing asf to navigate this game, basically made me use a guide at points of this game due to it being confusing where tf to go. Sometimes grinding can be a bit of an issue as well, but thats fine cause Hard Mode + SMT = obv grinding, but Macca grinding wasn't fun esp when the whole damn team becomes confused and throws away 120,000 Macca man ♥♥♥♥ you LOL.
Difficulty
The difficulty of this game is def the highlight of the SMT series, and it was sooo satisfying to complete the game cause of it. Even though it felt impossible at times, it also felt fair for most of the times I died, as many of the times I died were cause of mistakes I felt like I caused (except early level attacks from behinds those were bs). The difficulty can def scare people who aren't used to hard asf turn-based combat, but for me it was just amazing especially when persona (especially you Persona 2: Innocent sins) can be a bit sad comparing to SMT.
Story
The story was pretty dark themed, with reason and ♥♥♥♥. The characters were also super interesting, with even demons having characters as well which was pretty cool of a story telling. SMT III's story is def what I would call the defining point of SMT III, as it wasn't as focused as I would had hoped, since Gameplay was def more focused on. Even though I loved going through each character's arc, as they delve deeper into chaos, its a story that I will remember for its themes instead of what happened throughout the whole game, thats where the gameplay kicks in.
Music
Its badass, rock was such an amazing choice for this game, and I just loved it. It was annoying that the game had compressed music, but the wonderful modding community helped that aspect. Amala's Network battle theme, dante's theme, Lucifer's theme, so many songs I can list that I still listen on spotify sometimes, I just wish the damn original songs on spotify weren't greyed out cause I have to listen to the remixed/ fan covers of it, which is fine but I do wish the original songs were there.
Port
Prob the biggest issue with this game is the port. 30 fps lock, compressed music w/o mods, 4:3 cinematic, mouse camera is buggy asf, a ♥♥♥♥ ton of lag spikes even on PC like its really easy to list what went wrong with this port then what went right. There are positives of the port, even though I never played Nocturne, but voice acting was really good of an addition, and helped out the story and characters out alot, demon inheritance choice was super ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ nice, and some other things I don't know of were pretty helpful (I do know however thank god Dante got Pierce now, it def seemed to help him out to be a badass teammate instead of average). But the downsides as listed were pretty apparent, like 30 fps lock was just dumb, and why tf is the music compressed like you have CD songs which fans modded for you why tf?
Conclusion
This is def a really good SMT starter game, as I hella enjoyed it and I am super glad I spend 140 hours on it (some were afk but a ton was cause of death LOL). If the port and price were better/cheaper, it would be a free ass recommendation, but charging $50 + $10 for dante is SUPER damn steep, and I really do hope they reduce the price down the road.
9/10, featuring Dante from the Devil May Cry Series

This game was part of my childhood during the xbox 360 era, and tbh I always thought that this game was always better then dying light in terms of gameplay, story and character... until I played this game again with friends. This game imo has not aged very well and it becomes painfully obvious when you compare it to the spiritual successor of Dying Light (even though that game also had its issues).

Story
The story was just terrible LOL. Easily the most forgettable part of this whole game. Many of the actions the characters do are either painfully obvious, or painfully stupid. It didn't help that the mocap/animations for this game didn't age the best, so everyone seemed like they had a stick glued to the back of themselves, and did everything they could to make sure that stick never broke. The ending especially was just pretty bad, but around act I, act II, and a few moments of act III the story had many good moments. But act IV was just terrible and really ruined the story as a whole for me.

Characters
The characters for me are pretty recognizable as I used to spend hundreds of hours with them during the 360 era. However really looking into the characters and seeing them without the nostalgia goggles, they really sucked in terms of how they were presented. Many of them seemed so two dimensional, and would make poor decisions that was just so painful to sit through. Riptide def fleshed them out more, but the main cast was just way too stiff for my liking. The side characters that weren't in act I were just plain bad. They either had 0 character, or died after you left them for 10 minutes.

Gameplay
The gameplay for this game is honestly, still pretty good. However now that dying light is out which improved the game tremendously, the gameplay is just ok. I don't know if it was just me, but the zombies in this definitive edition just felt SOOO light, and I could kick them away for days without worry at all. Other aspects like no dropkick, and a meh skilltree led to the game just feeling like it was missing something that dying light filled. It's a shame cause this formula was where it all started, but newer games imo have just done it better now.

Tone
This is an extra point for this game, but the tone of this game was just all around the place. It seemed like it wanted to be taken seriously, but the poor animations, story telling and decision making just made this game a comedy instead. I know the developers changed the tone last minute cause it was supposed to be more comedy, but the dark tone just didn't work well for me and I love those types of story telling. Many of the moments in the story were too cliche for me to worth caring for.

Last notes
This game, playing it again, just showed me how painfully average it was. The endgame just seemed like it wouldn't be as fun as other games would be, and even though I have experienced maxing out my character in the 360, I just don't see myself doing it for this game. It really sucks because I held high praise for this game I used to play, and to realize just how PAINFULLY average it was, it really makes me wish I just didn't play it again.

Saving Grace
This game's coop mode is honestly pretty fun and the only reason why I would recommend this to anyone. The difficulty however is obvious that it wasn't scaled for coop, but the laughs you can get from this game makes up for the easy difficulty of this game. Death doesn't matter cause you respawn, zombies can easily be swarmed by the players and the 4 combined abilities makes this game a pretty easy cakewalk. So if you play this game solo, the difficulty is def much more fun in terms of gameplay, but the poor character, story and a bit poorly aged combat system compared to newer titles makes this really hard to recommend solo. But with coop I think it has its worth.

Conclusion
I am a bit disappointed to see just how average this game really was. Maybe it was due to my friends not caring for the story, so I was left with being rushed to do the story dialogue. However I do feel like if I TRULY invested into the story it still wouldn't be close to a memorable story as any other game I have played.

Kinda of a shame
4.5/10, may have its worth if you play in COOP, but single player just buy dying light... which also has a poor story LOL.

10/10
Nier Automata is not like any other game, from the gameplay and especially to the story/plot and the characters who live inside the world. Automata is a story about a war between the Androids vs the Machines in order to dictate the future of Humanity. I could go on and on about the story but to put it simply, this is one of the greatest game stories I have ever had the privilege to play through.

Gameplay
The gameplay in this game is just fantastic. The heart of the game is mainly Close Quarter Combat with melee weapons, which by itself could be another game itself, its that good. They not only perfected this combat system, but they also had a ton of other systems in the game that were amazingly implemented, such as flying segments, hacking segments and many other systems that just all work together like a charm. It should be illegal to have this much depth in a game, but the madlads did it somehow.

Story
Its hard to take a deep dive into what the story is, as it would be very hard to avoid spoilers. All I can say is the Story is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ Amazing. It sets many emotions for the player, and has had me teary eyed many times throughout the story. The game does need multiple playthroughs to get to the full story and true ending, but each playthrough is completely different from the last, even if they share similarities.

Characters
They are amazing (and hot). What more can I say? Each character not only have such amazing character design, but have complex arcs for each of them. Even the side characters make you think twice about real life, asking questions about hatred in humanity, and the real reason why we eat each other and eat our own people at times. The chemistry between 2B and 9S is just amazing, and their respected Operators just bounced off of them so beautifully.

Message of the game
This game has many different interpretations, many which of course, have spoilers for them. I greatly recommend reading each dialogue with care, as I never once felt like I had my time wasted reading through what each character had to say, as it added to the core message of the game and how it views Humanity in the future and even the present.

Difficulty
I played this game on Hard. There was an even higher difficulty of Very Hard, but that I do not recommend as it makes the player die in one hit, which tbh isn't the greatest experience especially for new players (even experienced dislike it). For Hard, lock-on was disabled and of course, enemies hit harder and you hit weaker. Having no lock-on wasn't that bad tbh, and only became an issue when it came to trying to hack targets and the crosshair just wouldn't target them. Other then that, the game was actually pretty hard during the early phases of the game. Many of my deaths felt earned and were at my fault, but I also experienced times where I would just get one shotted a bit too many times. Nearing the mid to end game was when the difficulty def slowed down, as equipping proper chip sets made the game a much easier experience, which felt earned in my book. Grinding side stories also helped.

Main and Side Story Quests
The main quest as explained, was just fantastic. Seeing each character's uprising and downfall as things turned for the worst was just fantastic writing. Not only was the Main storyline amazing, but even the Side Story Quests were just as amazing. Each of them were individual missions for somebody or just a side character, but they all had one thing in common, amazing writing in the story plot. They each cleverly depicted faults that humanity has, and shows the good and dark sides both android and machine side. It soon became easy to see just how similar each side is, as they react to the same scenario exactly the same way even if they swear they are polar opposites. I strongly recommend doing all the side quests, as they are super worth it and enjoyable to do.

Music
O.M.G the music man. ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ it bangs in this game. A ton of Atmospheric music, followed up by vocals were just outstanding. So many bangers in this ost, and so many cry in bed songs as well :(. Not only were there many songs for each area in the game, but also music for pivotal story moments, and even unique music for each side story, making the songs never obnoxious, overstayed. I just loved the hell out of the OST in this game, and the composers were geniuses to make it. The use of Violin, Piano and especially again, the Violin were so beautiful that I can go on and on about how amazing the music is. This OST is def a spotify repeated ost now in my playlist, its that good that Idk if I would ever get bored of the music. It can range from gym music (prob), to study/relax music to just bangers to listen on the side. I just really hope that others can listen to the music as well and experience what a masterpiece game OST sounds like.

The game in itself is just perfect, it def reaches my Top 10 games of all time, and it makes me kinda sad to think that I will never experience the game like how I did my first time ever again. I bought this game around 2018 but never played it till recently when my friends told me about just how amazing this game really is. Boy do I not only regret never playing this game sooner, but the missed time I could had spent thinking about how amazing this game really is... and there is one good reason for why I delayed playing this game.

The PC Port
the PC port of this game is just... awful. Its not very good tbh. It comes with your usual 60 fps lock, 30 fps cutscenes, but what makes it worse is that the base game doesn't even work properly. You are basically REQUIRED to download the FAR mod in order to make the game look actually presentable and not blurry as ♥♥♥♥. It also fixes a ton of other issues that just should not even be there in the first place. I also installed another mod that basically makes KB+M actually viable, as the base game has not only ♥♥♥♥♥♥ KB+M camera controls, but ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ like the shooting sections just outright being impossible with the controls, and worst of all... no dedicated evade button like wtf? Downloading both of these mods made the gameplay experience much much better. Worst part is that Square Enix PROMISED they would fix these issues after a ton of fans review bombed the game after they actually DID fix it... only in the PC game pass version. So when was that promise? well 4 months ago thank you very much! makes me think they only did it as a PR stunt.

Cons/Nitpicks
Most of the cons comes from the PC port of this game (surprise), but other then that the other nitpicks come with how tedious some sidequests came to be sometimes being a fetch this many items and come back that was thankfully mitigated with most of the time having required items you already own and a kickass backstory to the side quest. Also the frustration of hard early game (which was imo still very fun to play with) was an issue, but was again mitigated by the chip system which is just so good of a system to begin with. Another nitpick was how expensive and not worth Pod upgrades were, which mostly requested ♥♥♥♥ like 10 pure water, when I have found like 6 my WHOLE playthrough. Upgrading chips and weapons are always worth and easy to do, but pod upgrades just requested too much supply, and the supplies were an inconvenient, as they weren't dropped by enemies but were laying around the game instead. Hacking can also sometimes be tedious, but was mixed well enough to not be THAT big of an issue.

In Conclusion
This game is simply, a MastaPiece. Experiences like this game are so far and infrequent that it makes me sad to see AAA studios not having the balls to experiment and go wild as the devs of this game did. Such unique ideas and crazy story elements/plots make this one of a kind and a deserved fanbase. I have yet to play Replicant, but it is most def on my to play list now after experiencing what an amazing game this is... simply perfection
10/10, enters my MastaPiece rankings

8.5/10 (9 if you are a Persona fan)
Persona 5 Strikers is by definition, A Sequel to Persona 5 (not royal, as it does not seem to have references to that game story wise), and its a damn good one at that. Even though the game was not only using a completely different Fighting system, from Turn based to Warriors Hack and Slash like, AND was made by a different company, the game at large still feels and plays like a Persona game. What Koei Tecmo pulled off to recreate the Persona style is nothing but extraordinary. Many of their previous warriors games, in my opinion, were just plain boring. I am not a big fan of Warriors games, but somehow they made Persona 5 Strikers still feel not only like Persona, but an actual fun game (sorry Warriors fans). Now onto the pros and cons of this game.

Combat: The combat in this game is simply amazing, especially for a combat system that I previously dislike. With the use of not only Personas and the Phantom Dash Mechanic making the combat feel unique and special each interaction, but also each character's unique playstyle and personality, while also staying true to who they are from the previous game. The game always tries to throw in a new gimmick or mechanic into the fight each time you progress in order to prevent the combat from becoming stale. Fighting large quantities imo is just plain satisfying, however fighting one, strong enemy can show the limits of the combat system. The game does try to spice it up with new mechanics, but it is obvious the combat was made for large groups, as slashing only one target doesn't feel as satisfying, and there were a couple of moments where I thought turn based would had made the boss fight more interesting.

Difficulty: the game was simply easy, a bit too easy at times but at the same time, would be hard. It may be due to me doing all the requests in the game, but near the end it was very uncommon to die, as the game had many many, many forgivable mechanics in order to prevent death, while also many of the enemies would telegraph their attack, allowing for alot of time to react and dodge. There was a Merciless option too, but that was only after you beat the game + post-game content.

Story:Im not going to dive deep into the story simply to avoid spoilers, but at large, the story was pretty damn good. Again, wasn't as good as mainline Persona games, but was still really good at the end and gave me the badass feel that the Persona 5 story previously gave me. The message of this game was also pretty good, tackling modern society issues, and having really complex characters, with none of them being just pure good or pure evil, but instead having reasons for their actions.

Characters: the Phantom Thieves has returned yet again, and I think they still were just as good as in the previous game. They even gave Haru much needed character development that persona 5 lacked in, while also making everyone else more fleshed out, while sticking to who they were in the first game. The New Characters were also amazing, as not only were the new main characters super fleshed out, but also the side characters and the antagonists were really amazing to watch and learn about. There wasn't really an amazing main antagonist like what persona 4 and kinda persona 5 had, but the story kinda went through the same story arc as persona 5 did, and tbh I was fine with it.

Music: as always, the Persona music is back and better then ever. The OST for this game consisted of mostly remixes of previous Persona 5 music, usually in a rock remix format. There was also brand new music for this game, and they were simply sooooooo goooooodddd. Idk how tf they produce bangers after bangers of music, but they do somehow. There was an issue for the ratio of new music and remix music, as I did feel like there was a bit too many remixes where they could had used a new song, but the remix were bangers anyways so I ain't complaining lol.

Small Nitpicks/Positives:
-LOVED how this game felt like Persona 5: Sequel, with just a new combat system.
-PC controls were awful, I had to remap a ♥♥♥♥ ton of buttons in order to make it playable. In the end I got it to work and made if playable, but there was still some issues I couldn't get rid of like how the camera was just either too damn fast, or too damn slow to rotate. I know the game was made for controllers, but whatever I am just that kind of guy.
-The Voice mixing in this game was all around the place. Most of the time, it was pretty good. Sometimes however, the Voice actor would be too quiet, too loud or even have a drop in quality as if they didn't have any noise suppression. It was especially obvious during the beginning segments, like how sometimes even the character's audio would be so damn quiet I would have to repeat them, which just sucked. It was however pretty obvious it was due to the Voice actors having to record remotely due to Covid-19, so I think they get a pass in that regard.
-from persona 5 to persona 5 strikers, due to the combat change, some things were nerfed or majorly buffed indirectly. The SP pool was still pretty small, that was just a 5 thing in the series and its back in strikers. However, items are just 10x better in this game due to not only having huge quantities to buy in the shop and around the city, but also due to now being able to pause the game and chug a ♥♥♥♥ ton of potions and food without the penalty of it taking a turn like what the previous persona games did. IMO I wasn't a big fan of this, as it did kinda slow down combat, but it was different due to the combat, and there wasn't much to do in that regard except maybe nerf the amount of items.
-The game also had weird PC port things alongside it. Its obviously a console port of a game with things like 60 fps lock, game logic pauses when you don't focus on the window, till you go back into the game, and even with max details, the game seemed to have an anti-aliasing issue, with characters and further away objects just looking pretty pixelated imo.

In conclusion, the game was still really damn good, especially for a persona spinoff title. This is most def the best spinoff title from the entire persona series, but I still think the turn based combat should stick for the mainline series going down. Even though I really enjoyed this combat system, it did have its limitations, especially with large boss fights that the other system didn't lack. Of course large quantities was better in this system, but hey. Other than that, this game is especially worth to get if you played Persona 5, as this is just a continuation sequel to that game. If you are a first timer however the game is still really damn good, but you maybe lost in the story element and characters as you don't know who they are and what they did before, as they especially make tons of references to the previous game. I still think you can go thru this game w/o persona 5 experience, but I still highly recommend playing Persona 5 First. The length of the game took me around 50-55 hours, which also included me doing all the requests that was allowed in first playthrough, which is a really damn good length and so worth the price of the game (idk why people complained it was too explained like ok lol).

8.5/10 (9 if you are a Persona fan), really damn good game.

A very impressive mod to Portal 2. The time portal is a REALLY amazing addition to portal (pls hire this man valve for portal 3) and the puzzles overall were very hard, but spectacular. I would be stuck on a specific puzzle for hours but once I finally solved them man it felt good. The story and characters weren't as good as base portal 2 (obv) which was a bummer, but honestly henry (or the test voice over guy) did the job, and had pretty good portal humor overall. Things I did wish were some more creative uses of the time portal, I feel like the concept can def expand alot more and would love to see community made maps for this mod, and uses of modern portal 2 elements like the liquids would be nice if this concept would be expanded upon.
For a Portal Mod- 10/10
In terms of Overall game rating - 8/10
would def recommend to others who have beaten portal already especially for the challenge it offers.

So this is how Phoon learned how to Bhop.

wow, where do I even begin?
I have only recently gotten into persona, starting with persona 5 the beginning of this year, and it was only truly cause of my other friends pushing me to play the series, and the push got even bigger once joker was announced for smash bros. For the longest time I have avoided the series as I believed that it was just weeb trash and would had been boring. Boy have I been wrong.
Persona 5 by itself was such a masterpiece that I went into this game saying "how can it get any better?" wow was I proven wrong.

This game really gave me a a rollercoaster of emotions, and man did it age better than fine wine. Even though this game had some weaker gameplay elements that persona 5 fixed, the story and the cast really carries this game throughout the whole experience that it makesup for how it can fall behind persona 5, and the story and cast proves to be sooooo much better than the persona 5 crew that it amazes me just how they even topped it. Getting to know every single person in this game was a real joy ride and it just saddens me to know that I will be leaving them. People do not joke that finishing persona leaves a dark void inside you, since it happened to me twice.

Lastly, the game simply has a godlike ost, which is expected from persona. So thank this game for having my spotify only be filled with persona 4 day theme and time to make history.

10/10 and I would even say I liked it more than Persona 5. What a masterpiece of a game.

10/10
its free, and has some good character content for later development.

10/10
what a great puzzle platformer.
Even though I had this game on the xbox 360, I still played the game through steam and the magic of portal still affected me.
Even after all these times, the game still aged well and gave me a chuckle. I would end this with me saying Can not wait for the next entry to portal, but we already know that is never going to happen...

My God, I forgot to even mention that there was a co-op mode and even workshop maps.

10/10