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345
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Recent reviews by MetaWaddleDoo

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Showing 1-10 of 21 entries
5 people found this review helpful
20.4 hrs on record (11.1 hrs at review time)
It's the legendary Dreamcast helicopter shmup featuring one of the greatest soundtracks of all time. Nearly flawless port, runs fantastic on Steam Deck as well. Lots of arrange modes and different ship types, so the game won't get boring unless you're boring.
Posted 20 April.
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2 people found this review helpful
97.4 hrs on record (69.5 hrs at review time)
Heaven or Hell, let's rock!
Posted 13 November, 2024.
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No one has rated this review as helpful yet
15.7 hrs on record (8.7 hrs at review time)
Did you enjoy snaking in Mario Kart DS and spend every night wishing there was an entire game that expanded upon that mechanic featuring Sega Saturn graphics that took place in a parking garage so you could live out your power fantasy of driving really really fast down the twirly ramps?
Posted 22 October, 2024.
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No one has rated this review as helpful yet
34.5 hrs on record (6.3 hrs at review time)
I slept on this game for way too long thinking it was just a VR tech demo. Turns out it's the most complete Tetris package out there. If you like Tetris you buy this game. Simple.
Posted 11 August, 2024.
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42 people found this review helpful
2 people found this review funny
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3
3.6 hrs on record (3.1 hrs at review time)
I'm only giving this a thumbs up because as a shmup gamedev myself I find it incredibly difficult to actually hit that negative review button. Cygni in its current state is simply not worth your time. I did not beat the game at the time of this review, but some of the issues are so apparent from the getgo that I do not feel it's necessary and I honestly just do not have the motivation to play much more of it. If I play more of it and find I was mistaken on some points, or the game gets updated I'll try my best to remember to edit this review.

This game had so many eyes on it so it was my hope that it would bring new fans into the genre. If the developers are reading this, please understand I'm sharing these critiques because I want this game to be at least decent. It's hard to make a game and I'm not trying to take a piss all over your hard efforts. I've never had this many friends messaging me about a new shmup asking if it's good or not. There's more people paying attention to this game than any other shmup in the past decade.

I looked up the credits to the game and the root of all problems with Cygni became immediately apparent to me. Of the ten people on staff and the nine contractors, only two of them are listed as game designers. Both of which had other roles on the team which I can only imagine were significantly stressful and time consuming endeavors based on the fantastic end results of those elements. As far as I understand, Cygni had no one putting all of their time and effort into the gameplay department. And it shows. It really REALLY shows.

There is little to critique in the art and sound department. It's all incredible work. The art style and music aren't to my liking but that's just a personal taste thing. No such thing as right or wrong there. Menus are a bit confusing but I figured them out. That's about it.

Already going into it knowing the game takes several hours to complete, I know this will not be a game with the core vision of being a competent arcade-style game. That's fine, there's longer progression based shmups out there and some of them ARE fun despite what genre purists will argue. But even looking at the game through these lens, it is hard to say it's done well.

First off, let's talk about the difficulties. There's Easy, Medium and Hard. Pretty standard fare. The game defaults to Medium. I spent about an hour playing stage 1 on Medium, dying and restarting thinking maybe I just wasn't understanding something. It turns out without any upgrades you literally cannot kill some of the enemies and bosses before they time out. Why does the game not only let me play an unwinnable scenario at the beginning, but also DEFAULT to it? Once I switched to Easy I felt like I was playing a real game, and this really feels like the difficulties should be changed to something like "Normal, Hard, and Very Hard" with Hard and Very Hard being unlockables after the player has gotten some ship upgrades.

Next, let's talk about how the upgrades work. In the age of roguelites, gachas and Vampire Survivor clones, there is no shortage of games available to study incredibly engaging and addicting progression systems. It should be hard to get this stuff wrong. Cygni requires you to complete a stage in order to receive upgrade currency. This isn't exactly a horrible decision, however the first level took me 17 minutes to finally complete once switching to Easy. So for the first hour or so of playing the game, I made no progress on ship upgrades. And here's when the game gave me the biggest middle finger ever: I didn't even have enough currency to unlock anything. There was a way I was playing that caused this, but it brings to light perhaps the most frustrating design flaw of Cygni:

Cygni features a pretty unique mechanic where you can trade shields for firepower, and you can trade firepower for missiles. It's a bit clunky but it is kind of fun to keep filtering the shield pickups into more damage. The way I had the most fun interacting with the game was staying very low on shields and constantly spamming missiles. So here's the thing, the shield pickups are also your upgrade currency. But ONLY if you have your shields maxed out. This is how I cleared stage 1 with no upgrade currency. So understanding this, I now have to make a decision: do I play the game in "action mode" and use all of my tools at my disposal to win? Or do I play the game in "farming mode" and make sure I harvest as many resources as possible so I'm stronger for the next stage? It's not a fun decision to be presented with, and actively encourages the player away from interacting with the most interesting element of Cygni. There's just a complete lack of synergy here.

So how are the upgrades once you can finally get them? Honestly pretty underwhelming. It doesn't feel like I'm getting stronger, it feels like I just started with a handicap and slowly get back to a moderate power level. So much so that some of the upgrades are explained in the tutorial before I can even use them. This created a feeling of confusion and disappointment when I tried to use these tools for the first time only to not have access to them. It then also ruined the sense of excitement I would've had from unlocking them.

All of that stuff is easily fixable, except for maybe making the upgrades more punchy. Now there's some issues that I'm not sure can be fixed. My biggest personal gripe with this game is the inability to play with an arcade stick. Even Capcom and Namco understand when making a fighting game that part of the fun of a genre born from the arcades is playing on an arcade stick. To many, playing a shmup on a controller feels like playing Guitar Hero on a controller. Sure you can do it but it doesn't feel right. And it's not even the pseudo-twin stick controls that get in the way (although that is a problem and being able to aim with such limits feels pointless). It's the fact that I have to use more than 8 buttons to be able to do everything in the game which means no standard arcade stick will feel good with this game. It just kind of feels disrespectful to the history of the genre, especially when the requirements of a controller or keyboard+mouse doesn't really add much to the game. And coming from a game published by Konami, it feels like a game ashamed of its own legacy when it should be incredibly proud.

(word limit reached, continued in comments)
Posted 9 August, 2024. Last edited 9 August, 2024.
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1 person found this review helpful
23.4 hrs on record
Let's talk for a moment about why arcade game design is so important. I do not really know where else to place my brain vomit on these subjects other than in Steam reviews when a game inspires me, and it seems just as good a place as social media to keep a public journal.

Much of video gaming as we know it was largely born in the arcades of the 80s and 90s, and the philosophies of that era of gaming took from what came before it: card games, wargames and various other tabletop competitive games. Roleplaying and other forms of folk gaming existed but had not yet been widely popularized, and that eventual peak in popularity would give rise to console game design philosophies. To the average person during and before the arcade era, playing a game was a way to pass time by testing one's intellectual fortitude through abstract rules and game avatars.

Arcade games are by nature intended to be both a distraction and a skill. Something you interact with consistently, but within a limited amount of time each day. The formula only works if you allow yourself to step away from the game, process what you learned in your subconscious during REM sleep, and revisit it another day. It is most likely to be appreciated when approached the same way one would go into a sport or playing an instrument. The only noteworthy difference is that no one will be particularly impressed with your achievements and your efforts are largely futile, albeit very fun.

A truly well designed arcade game isn't something that you can "beat." Its gameplay is infinite. Sure, there can be unlocks and progression systems and achievements and all of that but the meat of the game is the process of learning how to keep improving. Pushing yourself past limits that seemed impossible just a few sessions ago. The simple inclusion of a scoring system can make a game endless since it acts as a metric for how far your skills have progressed.

For a game-design philosophy born from arguably one of the scummier business models, in the time of a one-purchase model it is now by far the most consumer friendly design philosophy possible. An adventure game runs out of things to explore, a collectathon runs out of stuff to collect, a multiplayer game eventually loses its playerbase, but an arcade game through its deep mechanics and demand for an unachievable perfection always has more to give.

So what does Savant Ascent Remix do that is so noteworthy? It proves that there are still radically unqiue ideas available to push this framework. The game pulls primarily from twin-stick shooters, platformers, and of all things LCD Game and Watch games. But at its core it is an arcade game. I am no longer impressed by giant worlds and new technology. The most exciting artistic pursuits in video games are when a developer takes a simple idea and explores every possibility within that limit. Arcade games are the best place for this to exist and indie developers are the only ones insane enough to make them these days.

The Story Mode does a good job at easing you into the game and letting you get a grasp on the fundamental gameplay with little consequences. But if you keep playing, even Hardcore mode will start to become quite easy. Trying to beat your best score is still fun in this mode, but the game really came alive for me when I jumped into Survival Mode. This is where I believe the mechanics of Savant Ascent Remix shine the brightest.

At first you get used to using the basic shot, but quickly realize that your charge shot is your most useful tool. Then you steadily learn how to increase your combo and discover that you can spam the everliving piss out of that charge shot. Now to keep up with the increasing challenge you have to keep your combo going to stay powerful, and jumping which you previously decided was a very risky maneuver is your only way to keep a combo going without shooting. The game was filled with revelations like this and once you're using all the tools the game gives you effectively, you're dancing like a maniac and surviving long after the game starts layering the final boss with enemy waves accompanied by a message stating "THIS ENDS NOW." It's an incredible rush that keeps you coming back, but gives you the opportunity to set the controller down and walk away satisfied with your session even in defeat.

I haven't even touched time attack mode, classic mode, or even played the original game yet. And still I've found a full day's worth of hours with pure enjoyment out of this game. No grinding to get the next unlock to help me beat a boss, no wandering aimlessly hoping the game will give me breadcrumbs of "content", no ranking system with data-driven queue systems designed to lock me in an eternal addiction, no RNG systems maliciously crafted to make me open my wallet. No ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, no nonsense. Just me and a game. A conversation with no words between someone looking to kill some time and a developer who has the utmost respect for how much I value my time.
Posted 4 August, 2024.
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No one has rated this review as helpful yet
58.4 hrs on record (55.8 hrs at review time)
Still by far the most enjoyable pure rhythm game that doesn't require a unique controller that will inevitably take up space in your closet.
Posted 29 July, 2024.
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No one has rated this review as helpful yet
62.9 hrs on record
(the) Gnorp Apologue completely subverts the Idler genre by having an ending to free you from the curse and requiring the player to use more than 10% of their brain cells. The headspace it put me in is very similar to the beginning of an RTS where you're building up your base.
Posted 21 July, 2024.
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No one has rated this review as helpful yet
1 person found this review funny
2.0 hrs on record (0.6 hrs at review time)
I haven't even started the game yet but this is the best ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ tutorial I've ever seen in a shmup. Anyone who genuinely wants to learn how to play these games should start here as it goes over some pretty important fundamentals that can help with every shmup in existence.

EDIT: I feel like the tutorial was some sort of meta joke because this is one of the weirdest shmups I've played in awhile lmao
Posted 13 June, 2024. Last edited 13 June, 2024.
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3 people found this review helpful
4.1 hrs on record
An incredibly charming game, with amazing art direction and fantastic music. This isn't the sort of bullet hell that's likely to inspire you to go full try-hard and grind hours for a perfect run. The game doesn't take itself too seriously anyway so I think that feeling is intentional. But that being said, the gameplay is very tight and the scoring is actually a ton of fun. Bullet cancelling is a great mechanic to lean on for a game that looks so inviting. It's not the most groundbreaking shmup, but the mix of everything makes it a really good game to play when you want something lighthearted and for that reason I find myself coming back to it a lot. Just like breakfast, this game shouldn't be skipped!

Also it's worth reading the character dialogue! There were a few moments that got a real laugh out of me.

*playtime isn't entirely accurate, played this a lot on Switch when it first released
Posted 4 June, 2024.
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Showing 1-10 of 21 entries