Recent reviews by Studious

Three strikes -
1. Kernel level anticheat. This is completely unnecessary. Stay out of my system.
2. Having to disable IPv6 to be able to play with my friends online. A full hour of troubleshooting over this, when INDIE DEVELOPERS have you beat here.
3. Making Sony account linking mandatory. Again, completely unnecessary. Done seemingly out of spite for your own fanbase. Though, to be fair its not the developers at fault with this one.

For the time I had played this game, I can say that I genuinely had fun. It looked like this game was the real deal; great gameplay, top notch visuals. But now I'm seriously conflicted about playing this and inadvertently supporting terrible business practices. This really is a case of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

The Sneed family apocalypse cult vs Waco County police department

What is essentially Farcry 3 with some minor improvements and flair here and there; in other words this is Farcry 3.5. Mechanically and gameplay wise it does feel like the most well designed of the Farcry games, but there aren't any surprises here. You'll roam about the countryside, doing side quests and liberating outposts; hunting for money to buy guns etc, etc.

The setting and the characters are the most interesting parts of the game by far. Though the game's statements are somewhat (understandably) superficial, there are things that it's trying to say. Joseph and the cult try over and over to forcefully convert the player in the same way they've been indoctrinated. And they'll go to extreme lengths to justify themselves and keep their moral superiority, all the while purging the countryside in rural America. It's a bit spicy of a premise, but in practice, the game waters it down quite a bit. The most cogent theme of the game I could muster is man's ever-burning desire for simple solutions to complicated problems. Joseph builds the rock of his cult on giving people simple solutions and a reason to lash out against the world.

It's a fun time. There are always going to be spots that could use more polish in an open world game like this. I was starting to get a bit tired of the game around the 20 hour mark. Though the gun roster isn't expansive it's fine enough. Mostly by the end my pattern recognising brain was ailing. These cultist types love their big coats, beards, scraggly white sweaters, and stealing every possible kind of vehicle in the county. You also get captured 20 to 30 times during the game. All of this with a factory model silent protagonist.

Overall, it does what it does pretty well, ending notwithstanding. It certainly is one of the games of all time.

I bought this game on a whim, and you know what? It was worth. This game slaps.

It's exactly what I was expecting and then some. Some great atmosphere, weather effects, planes for the plane dorks, and tight controls. A good amount of fun missions like raiding, dogfighting, combat support; there's also other missions, like escort. :)

I do have a few nitpicks here. For one, the localization is a bit skrungly. With gems such as, "How could you talk about food?" and "You put the meat between those buns and that burger is well done." You could see how this would be a little distracting while you're trying to dodge fifty missiles. Still, it has an odd charm to it; and the voice actors do their best with it, so it's hard to fault it too much.

This game is by no means easy, I think when all was said and done I game overed on just about every mission at least once. That said, there's generous checkpoints here, and even when some missions get out of control you can at least rely on a respawn after your nearest cutscene.

The story and characters are surprisingly good! It was a little confusing at times, but this is my first Ace Combat game, so eh. I can tell that there was a lot of care put into this. Solid gameplay, solid music. And hey, I'll be hearing MISSILE MISSILE MISSILE PULL UP in my nightmares for some time to come.

When you pay the troll toll, learn the ropes, and then pierce the firmament; it's hard not to feel like an unstoppable sky god. Good stuff.

Fight Knight is a one-of-a-kind indie gem. It's a mighty fusion of high-intensity fight, puzzling, and lo-fi fuzziness.

That said, it was a battle for me to finish this. This game plays very close to its old-style wizardry roots. It'll give you some hints here and there, but you're largely on your own with everything else. I can't say it's unfair for the most part, but I had to stop several times during play to contemplate what exactly the game was asking of me. This provides a shining beacon of both why this style of game is charming, and also why it isn't a part of mainstream design anymore.

Get beaten up enough times, you'll start to see patterns; assuming you don't just turn down the game speed and save some headache. If you run out of healing, you'll have to backtrack to the starting area to save and stock up or risk getting KO'd and sent back. Just imagine playing Dark Souls with one bonfire, and you'll get the idea.

This is all small potatoes compared to what the last few areas have in store. If you're not a master of the mechanics by then, the game will punish and punish and punish you some more. On top of that, there's some disturbing imagery and somewhat tough to look at textures. Fight Knight doesn't just bring the fight to your reflexes, you'll have to manage some eye strain as well.

However, through all my nitpicks, the moment-to-moment gameplay is still very good. The style, the design, the music, the way the characters all talk by warbling and muggling noises; the way your character only communicates via punching... It's masterful. You'll know right away if this is your game. Still highly recommended.

If your crank is Dark Messiah meets Daggerfall, then look no further.

Personally though, the switch from that sweet feeling of discovery to "Oh, ok now it's time to put in 50 more hours if I want to beat this game" was remarkably quick. There isn't a lot that goes into this, but I still feel like it's missing something. Some extra spice, like unlocks or a more tangible way to see progress; or just more persistent buffs would've helped immensely. Leveling up is all fine and dandy but it doesn't soften the blow when I lose a quarter of those every time I get knocked off the tree and hit every branch on the way down.

I do appreciate the dormroom-style vibe of the graphics, but ultimately I can't contend with the grind this game is asking for. Repeatedly grinding levels to upgrade wimpy perks into cumulatively slightly less wimpy perks just doesn't do it for me. I mostly feel sorry for the main character here, he got stuck in the most prodigious, state-of-the-art security complex packed floor to floor with deadly monsters and traps that eviscerate healthbars. Bro can't catch a break.

There wasn't any point where I felt particularly powerful or formidable. This felt more like a constant struggle against the specters of RNG and grind that I wasn't going to win. No reason I'd pick this over any of the other roguelikes in my library, sadly.

This game appeals to the cro-magnon box stacker buried deep within all of us. Get cards, place cards on top of other cards, then find other cards to place on those cards.

What is essentially an excel spreadsheet of efficiency, fruit salad, and light combat management. By the end of this rather quaint campaign I had card stacks jostling and jittering EVERYWHERE. So, I don't have high hopes for anyone playing this w/ OCD. There's a lot of micro involved here, and it can get tiresome. Still, what you see is what you get. It's a good time.

Larping your way to victory, or: How I saved the world with an imaginary pepper grinder.

The raisin faced boys are back at it again for another beatdown, but this time someone at Sega forgot what kind of genre they were developing and flipped the game-o-tron to JRPG. However, depending on what you're looking for that might just be the crank to your tank, the butter to your toast, the Kiriyu-chan to your Goro.

The strongest point in favor of this game, like in any Yakuza game, is the story. There's something to be said about being so invested in these characters that you feel your understanding grows as their stats and levels do. The writing for this game is also superb and very much in line with predecessors. The core message of this game is anyone can be a hero; and what's right and what's best are often conflicted, muddy notions. It takes something what would be very much looked down upon in modern Japan, publicly larping as a hero, and turns it into something positive. That's about as admirable as it gets.

So, visuals and gameplay are on point. If you've played any JRPG, be prepared to see the same mechanics you've seen everywhere. There's a job system that exists and adds a splash of variety. There's collectibles and side quests, etc etc. And while I wouldn't call it revolutionary, Yakuza does step up with some nuanced and subversive perspectives here. It approaches ethnic issues with a great deal more tact than I was expecting, and hey! Women are here too and they sometimes do things! Breaking new ground.

While I do like what this game has going on, it is by no means perfect. It's pretty unbalanced in curious ways. There is a fair bit of grinding here. The random encounters get tiresome over time, especially when it seems like every five feet there's a troupe of delinquent mimes ready to jump you. I foregoed inventory management for most of my playthrough in favor of tossing energy drinks and fried chicken into the bottomless black hole that was my pockets. The ending stretch of the game had these problems magnified. I strongly considered quitting a couple of times after the game went full mask off and gave bosses 2-4 turns in a row stomping my party into the dirt before I could shove takoyaki in their face holes. I feel like this game went with standard protocol as far as having insane healthbars, but I started looking up guides immediately after my first insta-kill game over. I get that Ichiban is the center of this party, but why does the game instantly end if he gets downed? Not cool.

There's a lot to like here, and a good amount that I think could still be refined. Still, you could do a lot worse with dipping your feet into a brand new genre of game.

Unlike Ultima, this game doesn't require a computer science degree + piloting license to operate. Unfortunately, like Ultima, this game is a brash unforgiving dragon that keeps trying to throw you off its back.

This particular brand of aimlessness is a tad soulcrushing to people spoiled by modern game design. There's modern improvements here and there, generous autosaves, notes, a nice map, named goals etc etc. Still, and this is key, this game remains very close to its early adventure game roots. You're going to die a lot, you're going to be dragged all across the map and then forget why you went there when you get there.

To some people, this game is a refreshing dip in the nostalgia fountain; a trip down memory lane. I see a work of art made by someone deeply passionate about an era of games. And then, he released it for free. Bravo!

Well designed demon girls make my brain go awooga. The game is cool too.

Drug-fueled schizophrenic nihilistic nightmare disguised as a post-ironic satire parody of maximalist ultracapitalist powerviolence that's masquerading as a glorpy horrific low-quality battery-acid trip kaleidoscope FPS game that's also disguised as an avant-garde consumerist post-parody existentialist game-breaking speedrun playground that's masquerading as a drug-fueled schizophrenic nihilistic nightmare.

It's like if Sam Hyde and LSD Dream Emulator swapped saliva in the MKUltra dimension. If any of that piques your interest, boy do I have a game for you.

It's the video game equivalent of sticking your sausage in a toaster. All the points are made up and nothing matters.