Recent reviews by blue

a better & more fun game than its sequel. championship 1 focuses more on actual survival, whereas 2 focuses more on the actual train mechanic, to its detriment. a much more interesting iteration on pac-man than championship 2 that focuses on the basics. goes on sale for like 2 dollars, very strong recommendation.

If you like tetris this is for you, if you don't this isn't. good complement to other tetris games on steam like puyo puyo tetris or connecte.

quake 1 is good, quake 2 is -really- funny

oh my god

a decent time overall, but feels like it can snowball for or against you depending on how you fare in terms of building your dice pool. very possible that this is just a big skill issue but the scaling between areas is definitely noticeable and if your output (damage or defense) does not keep up, you are likely to bite the dust.

as it stands though it's not the worst game i've played in the genre and i can see myself revisiting it from time to time

there are better and more enticing games out there if you are seeking difficult boss fights. this game's fights, and the inevitable runbacks, feel like a drain more than anything else.

it is serious sam 2. online is as dead as the first game. buy and play at your leisure for the single player i guess? if i want to be critical, i think the maps are too big. 1 kinda suffered of this, but on a smaller scale. 2 takes it to the next level. i get that it is a horde shooter and space is required, but there's such a thing as a bit *too* much space, which makes backtracking tedious. still an alright time, and decent gunplay.

it's serious sam 1. the online is dead but the rest of the game is here, if you want to play that!

I am personally not a fan of it and don't think the series aged well but i guess i can chalk stuff up to personal preference

bakeru is fun, straighforward, and unapologeticially japanese.

on a basic level, the game is very much an action-adventure romp. you go through stages, beat up enemies, knock off a couple objectives, maybe do a pit of platforming here and there, and move on. while there's something to be said about the length of the adventure, which could be cut by maybe 10-20%, the pace is relatively brisk and nothing really lingers.

with that said, i don't think i'd recommend 100%ing the game. when i said it is unapologeticially japanese, that translates to a couple things : stages are themed around the region they are set in, but it also extends to the collectibles. which are souvenirs and 5 pieces of trivia per stage. honestly? i do not think they are super worth it. i think it's worth exploring a tiny bit to see the full layout of the stages, but i don't think you should wrack your brain trying to find all the tiny collectibles and pieces of trivia the game has to offer.

arguably, one of the collectibles, the hidden tanukis, serves an actual purpose. namely, upgrading your ship in the second half of the game. with that said, i don't think the game is hard enough to warrant hunting those down, unless you absolutely need to see those achievements pop. similarly, there's achievements for not being hit by bosses, which i think is cool, but once again, not worth losing sleep over.

ultimately i guess that is some nitpicking (other than the length of the game), because what the game does, it does well in troves. stages are fun and diverse - some are shmups, some are races, some are side scrollers, some are boss fights, some are mecha fights, some are fixed angle stages. backing it up is a relatively simple (dodge, parry, attack) but fun combat system : enemies are very common across the stages, and beating them up for coins and power-up gauge feels very satisfying. the game also throws new enemies into the mix once in a while, for some enjoyable diversity.

as a whole, it feels like a tight package, that while it could've been shorter, is definitely at least worth your consideration and probably your time. good-feel makes good games, and i do not think bakeru is an exception to that rule.

i wish i was better at puyo puyo than tetris...