Recent reviews by Maevirro

I've waited so long for this! I am so envious of all of you who are going to experience this wonderful series for the first time. Enjoy the ride!

I've played around with other lofi focus tools like Virtual Cottage before and Spirit City is the best one. Aside from offering your typical timers and curated lofi playlists, SC also have options for journaling, a habit tracker, a timer that you can adjust for intervals of work and break time, a goal tracker that acts like a to-do list, and they've gamified the whole experience with a leveling and reward system. Best part really is the ability to load your own lofi tracks via the integrated browser so you're not stuck looping the same tracks from the static playlists provided.

With every level you earn, you get points to redeem customization options to make the environment, the spirits, and your avatar more unique to you. My favorite combo so far is the evening lighting while knitting by the fireplace or bay window.

I've been using this for studying and when I'm crocheting. It's pretty nice to see that I've unlocked something after a particular session.

I highly recommend this for anyone looking for a fun focus tool. I am looking forward to future updates.

Friends and I ended up cowering in a corner in our second attempt and we all needed to buy new pants. It was on EASY difficulty when this happened.

Yes, everyone compares this to Phasmo. Demonologist borrows a lot from Phasmo, but it is itself a different game. The environments are much scarier looking. The places actually look like it might be haunted. Paranormal activity happens all throughout the map and not just concentrated in the ghost room (which makes more sense for a haunting). There are secret rooms and little things hidden all over the map, which makes the map less stale.

Are there some cons? Bits of the game clearly need some fine tuning. Keep in mind that this game is still in early access as the time of writing. Phasmo was looking and feeling a bit rough when it was first released too. Demonologist can only get better from here and I look forward to seeing it.

10/10 for an awesome scary experience. Lots of fun when playing with friends.

Happy 25th anniversary FFVII! I've been a fan of FF7 ever since its release back in 1997. When they released the Advent Children movie, I was a happy fangirl to be able to see my beloved cast of characters remade into gorgeous CG characters. And when the remake for FF7 was announced, I waited so very long for its release, FF7 will always have a special place in my heart.

The Remake story isn't a 1-to-1 adaptation of the original game. It contains the heart of the FF7 story while giving it a new spin. I rather enjoyed this new iteration because the developers still gave us all the iconic and memorable scenes from the original (scratching all of the nostalgic itches) while keeping THIS version of FF7 fresh and unique. FF7 purists might not like this game, but if you want original FF7, then play the original FF7 (pretty sure that is also on Steam with its own set of achievements).

I love this game and can not wait to see the story unfold with parts 2 and 3! (Sephiroth is bae forever!)

Prefacing the review by saying that I am not a hardcore MMO player anymore. I haven't been min/maxing toons in an MMO for years now. I was hesitant about getting into Lost Ark because as an older adult now, I don't have as much time to devote myself to building a toon to be competitive at endgame. That said...

There's a lot to love about Lost Ark. It has pretty great visuals. Certain sequences in the game are absolutely epic. It's relatively easy to get into and combat is pretty smooth. I like that different islands have their own themes and being out in the world exploring them all really feels like a journey. The story is hokey, but that's expected.

However.

Big however.

There's a lot to not like about Lost Ark too. At the end of the day it is a P2W game. F2P players can't gear as fast as a player who is whaling and will often feel stuck. Why bother with gear? Because most of the content in the game is gated by your gearscore. I'm a casual player with no plans of hitting end game raids, yet I still need to work on gearing my toon because if I don't, I'll run out of content almost immediately. Islands are gearscore locked. Field bosses, gearscore locked. Dungeons, gearscore locked. Even the casual events (currently a Mario-esque racing event) rewards are locked behind a gearscore. An MMO needs to be gated in some way so it's understandable that gearscore is the way to go. If I never played Lost Ark, I'd totally agree. Here's where things get even more frustrating. You upgrade your gear through a honing system. Every time you hone, and it was successful, the percentage of success goes down. Pretty easy to understand, right? Except just recently, my paladin had an 85% success chance. One fail or two is reasonable. But I failed 4 times in a row and it used up all the mats I took time to farm for. So I didn't get to upgrade at all. At 85% chance success rate. The system can go as low as like 4% chance success rates (or even less than that) when you get to the high tier end game. Imagine how many times you're going to fail at 4% success rate when I am failing 4 times in a row at 85%. This game doesn't value the time you put into it and I already have limited time to play as it is. I don't need a constant 100% success rate. I don't need things to be super easy so we can steamroll everything and laugh. Just make the percentages make sense!

For me, I'm just going to play until my Crystalline Aura runs out and then this game gets to collect dust in my library. I mean, we already know when Amazon gets into the gaming industry that it's all going to be about taking your dollars at every turn, right? The western release of Lost Ark is not the same game that has been all the rage in Russia or Korea. It's the bastard stepkid.

Also, good luck to those people who got caught in the recent ban waves. They might be going after the bots, but I can totally still see all the gold seller bots blowing up chat and auto bots running in large groups through zones, so I don't know who they were really going for. I read up on what's happening with the ban wave. Get this. If one of those bots buys something you listed on the auction house, you get banned because you are suspected of cheating. You have no control over who buys your items. But let's say you plan to sell a skin for 20k on the auction house. Like I said, if a gold seller bot buys it from you, if they get banned for being a gold seller, you get banned for taking that gold. Yes. This is true. That's why so many people are wondering why their accounts were suspended/banned.

I am so done with this game and its craziness. Lost Ark is just a casino, guys and gals. Gambling is illegal in Korea, but they can circumvent that by putting in lots of gambling mechanics in a video game that involves microtransactions. I recently heard from someone that at the late endgame, if someone successfully hones a piece of gear with a very low success rate, a message goes server wide notifying everyone of the success? If this is true, that is exactly what they do in casinos. When someone wins a jackpot from a slot machine, all the bells and whistles go off and the machine flashes all these lights getting everyone's attention. You know why casinos like that? So all the losers surrounding that one winner might think to themselves that the system isn't rigged against them, that they have a chance to win too, so they keep playing and keep putting money into those slot machines. The house always wins. The players, not so much.

People have spent THOUSANDS of real world money just to "beat" that rigged honing system so their ONE toon gets a high gearscore. That's insane to me. Don't do it. Don't spend real money on a game that is designed to work against you. Just play something else.

Only pick this game up when it's highly discounted. The game is far too short for a Triple-A title. I was able to complete two separate runs in under 4 hours to get all the trophies. There is no comparison between this game and RE2rm. RE2rm is definitely the better game, especially for its replayability. Where RE2rm was a satisfying journey (both Leon and Claire's stories), RE3rm is a sidequest with lots of tentacle play. Oh you read that right. Jill gets attacked by tentacles many times and have things shoved into her several times. While hilarious, it's still not worth full price for admission.

It's a shame what happened to Telltale Games. I really enjoyed some of the games they pushed out and am sad that there won't be another season of The Wolf Among Us. I still have questions left unanswered.

I've always liked urban fantasy stuff. TWAU is urban fantasy with old school noir detective vibes. Unraveling the mystery was mostly fun, but some scenarios were rather forced. Most of the game was a slow burn with QTEs sprinkled throughout to offer some kind of action. I wish there was more investigating just to have more to do in the game. Most of the time I'm just watching things unfold.

I still recommend the game. I liked the art style. The voice acting was good. It doesn't take too much time to play and you get easy achievements.

Playing again on Steam after platinuming this game on the PS4. This game is open world done right. Many of the newer open world games just splatter fetch/escort/kill quests as side quests that end up meaningless and does not impact the world at all. They're more a chore for completionists than enjoyable little snacks. Witcher 3 is different. Yes, you still do get fetch/escort/kill sidequests, but they do influence the world. NPCs will remember if you were mean to them and will react to you appropriately if they see you again. Main quests will be scripted differently if you complete them in different orders or you talked to different NPCs. So much detail went into the crafting of this game that even now, YEARS after the game was released, you can still find secrets in the game. Heck, some of the sidequests are so well written, the story will stay with you just as much as the main plot. There are multiple endings so there's replay value.

Oh, and if you're like me and have a tendency to play the chivalric helper hero in RPGs, you're going to have a great time with this game because Witcher 3 will drill into you the fact that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. While exploring, I ran into a man who was being attacked by monsters. Playing the hero, I saved the guy. He gave me some story about being run off from a nearby village because he wore the uniform of the invading army. I didn't care. I told him to get new clothes or avoid towns for a bit. He thanked me and I was on my way. Okay, chapters later, I revisited the area for some reason and ran into the guy again. This time he was with a group of armored dudes with bloodied bodies strewn about their feet. The guy greeted me as his savior, gave me a big smile, tried to introduce me to his boys. Turned out he went and slaughtered the villagers who threw him out that first time and ransacked the place. The game is full of similar outcomes. You believe you're doing the right thing so you make a choice that you believe to be right, but it sometimes results in something far more harmful.

And then there's the world itself. Are the environments beautiful to look at? Yes. But there's more to it. The game rewards you for going off the beaten path and explore. There may be a dot or something on the map that has no marker, but if you're curious enough to go there to check it out, you could find treasure or a gorgeous vista worthy of multiple screenshots. I will always remember this one time near the beginning of the game where I had to visit an abandoned mansion for a sidequest. I noticed there was a path branching off and away from the mansion leading to nothing. Maybe the woods? So feeling inquisitive, I set a marker down and headed over in that direction. At first it really seemed like it was nothing. Just a path heading into the woods. As I proceeded down this path, the light got dimmer. The trees began to look a little more sinister. Birds stopped singing. The wind picks up a little. I hear a snap over my left shoulder like someone stepping on a twig. I stop in my tracks and look in that direction. I even used my Witcher senses. Nothing. I laugh at myself. "This isn't a horror game," I thought. I continue down the path only a bit more cautious now. Another snap. This time to the right and closer. Again, I tried scanning for danger. Again, nothing. I'm creeping along the path now. My ego demanding that I finish what I started and go see where this path leads. A snap. This time loud and directly behind me. I turn thinking that it's nothing again. I was wrong. An ancient leshen stood there staring down at me with angry eyes. It was many, many levels higher. I never stood a chance. I died, of course. But it was the most satisfying death.

I love this game so much. It absolutely deserved all the accolades it received.

It's a very simple, very short game about relationships. I chose to buy the game (along with its soundtracks) because the game looked charming and I like supporting baby companies. It IS charming, heartwarming at times, and, depending on your choices, sometimes sad.

If you're looking for mindblowing graphics or gameplay, LoveChoice isn't for you. This game is perfect for when you need a quiet moment to just chill and let someone tell you a story that you can take part in.

What a gem of a game. It's Journey mixed with Gris presented with the art, music, and charm of a Ghibli production. It's the little details that make this game super endearing. The ivy leaves that are platforms will give a little bounce when the player lands on them. The sound of flittering wings when you encounter a beetle just gives that extra sense of a living, breathing world. And, of course, there's the cuteness element. For example, when the player learns the double-jump skill, the little toon performs a twirl in the air. CUTE!

The game is short but it is worth a replay just to be immersed in the art and music again. If you're like me, a person who sometimes want to play a casual low-stress game to unwind, definitely give Hoa a go. There is zero violence. There isn't fall damage either. Everything is wholesome.

The developers put so much love, care, and attention into this work of art and it definitely shows. Please support the developers by purchasing this game and hope they make more games like Hoa!