Recent reviews by coverton341

I don't typically like card games, could never get into things like gwent or card battlers in general, but for some reason Balatro grabbed me and makes a great on the go game on the SD.

I don't like this game. I want to like it, but I just can't force it to feel good or fun. And that's after 165 hours. I want to go to that mountain in the distance and get lost in random things along the way until I completely forget that I was heading to that mountain over there. I want to find interesting people and locations along the way. I want to love this game but I don't. I don't even like it. I just click menu, system, planet, load in walk to a POI through a barren field, scan some things maybe, and rinse and repeat. It just isn't interesting or fun. It feels like a chore.

The game is charming. Its story is VERY inspired by Stardew valley while being unique enough to not feel like a complete copy paste. There are a lot of marriage candidates all with unique personalities and backstories so you should be able to find someone you enjoy. The music is good and the graphics and art style really work well. Overall an easy recommend to anyone who is a fan of the genre.

It's really good. It's a cerebral game that is less scary and more dreadful from an existential angle.

I'm so mixed about my recommendation, which I do recommend this game. So, let's get into it.
PROs:
- Classic JRPG with a rich story and intriguing characters. Maybe not as robust as Chrono Trigger in some regards, but better in others IMHO.
- The score is amazing. The only OST that I have ever just played to hear.
- Graphics on this edition are honestly great.
- Gameplay is turned based and for me it's a definite pro, but ymmv depending on if you enjoy that style or not.
CONs:
- Steam deck. It's verified, but it freezes at random times. Truly random, it doesn't seem to depend on time of play, area, event, anything.
- Some of the characters are one dimensional or just copy pastes of other characters. Yeah, I said it had intriguing characters as a pro, and I stick by it, but with so many characters in the game some are just flat.

I played the original when it first came out and it is legitimately one of my favorite JRPGs of all time, top 3 easily. That can definitely put me in the category of nostalgia playing, but I do love this version as well and think everyone should give it a try. I just can't in good conscious do so without pointing out that if you solely play on steam deck this is going to be more frustrating than it's worth IMO. The only up side is that it has an auto save feature that makes time loss not nearly as bad as it would have been back in the day.

Builds on the first and improves in every way. I've not had any slow downs or stutters and saves are syncing and working well between the steam deck and my PC, unlike some other SquareEnix games. All in all it's an easy recommend from me, especially if you liked the first but wanted a little bit more out of it

I never got into Harry Potter, but I'm enjoying this game. Do a little magic, fly around on a broom, chase a bunch of annoying flying keys. Seems good fun.

This is easily one of the best games I have ever played. Easy recommend. But, that said, a few points of advise for newcomers.

First, go in completely blind and stay that way. It is going to be tempting to look up how to do this or that in a guide. Don't. A good majority of this game's magic is discovery.

Second, be patient. If you just can't seem to figure something out, go somewhere else. Read everything there is to read, explore everything there is to explore, and let the threads connect themselves as they will. Your ship's computer can help you out when you are feeling stuck.

Lastly, just have fun. You can get up to some goofy stuff in a completely open galaxy, so get out there and do whatever you want. Want to see how your character reacts to the vacuum of space with no protective space suit? Well, you have that option.

I'm mixed on this game. I feel like it's a great entry into the new skateboard era games, with the likes of the Skate series and Session. It looks good, the levels are set up where you can get as creative as you want and land some really nice tricks. The mod support is on point, and there really feels like there is a lot to do and that the game was crafted with the love of skateboarding at its core.

On the other hand, I feel like the animations are just not that good. I have a decent set up and I have clipping feet through the board, weird floating feeling between the character's feet and the board, and the character just looks very stiff in general.

The controls for the most part are great, but I don't like the way switch is handled. It feels backwards to me personally. If I flick my controller's stick to the left I feel like the foot should kick to the left on screen and if I'm popping the nose I feel like I should be pushing up and then letting go. It's a small complaint but one that does bother me a great deal and has kept me from playing the game as much as I would like to.

Which brings me to the other reason I play the game less than I would like: varial tricks. Varial heelflip is probably my favorite trick IRL and in skateboarding games. I like the way they look, I like the way they feel, I like everything about them. I hate them in SkaterXL, mainly because if I push the stick even a nanometer more than the width of a hair for the scoop they over rotate. It's beyond frustrating. The same with the other 180 scooped flip tricks, they either over rotate to the 360 version, or on odd occasions will scoop the opposite direction. It's extremely irritating and keeps me from playing much anymore, while I hope for an update, but unfortunately since the official release there doesn't seem like there is much work being put into the controls or mechanics, just adding in community mod levels.

After the recent drama between dawgvinci and Dain from easy day, I can no longer really support this game or recommend it. Dawg was making mods that actually fixed a lot of my complaints but now that's been screwed up due to the threat of C&D because the developer can't take some criticism and jokes.

I really love the controls. I never got into the Skate series so I don't have any connection to those controls and I find the Session controls very intuitive.

With the 1.0 release, I'm even happier with the game.