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DJMAX RESPECT V is the latest rhythm game from the DJ Max series that has been releasing games since 2004. This title has a lot of content to get through in the base game alone and goes above and beyond what you expect to find in a standard rhythm game. Despite so many things going right for this title, the one red flag is a constant need for internet connection which raises some issues for the future of this game...

• Loads of skins to unlock for the notes and charts
• Focuses on the precision of hitting notes
• Loads of songs from multiple genres that all include music videos
• A lot of content and things to unlock
• Different modes including mission, Online, and freestyle modes
• Varies difficulties along with 4, 5, 6 & 8 button charts

• Requires constant internet connection (even in solo modes)
• No practice mode to nail tricky charts
• High difficulty curve as you start improving and moving onto harder songs

Admittedly, this is my first experience with a DJ Max game so if you're a veteran of the series then I doubt you'll need much of an explanation of what this game is. However, if you're new to this game like I was, let me explain how this title differs from other rhythm games.

DJ MAX RV is unlike other traditional rhythm games I've played in the past (I admit I've only played Guitar Hero), it focuses heavily on hitting notes with precision. Every note you can hit gives you a different amount of points based on how precisely you hit it, from 1% (wasn't even close to hitting the note on time) to 100% (hitting the note perfectly in time with the beat), this instantly gives the game a bigger skill gap between experienced players. To strive for completing a song without missing a note is one thing, but hitting every note perfectly is insane for some songs.

Another small aspect that you might notice about this title is the game doesn't punish you for hitting buttons where there isn't a note, so technically you can just spam buttons mindlessly to pass a song. However, as previously mentioned, you'll probably get a worse score if you don't at least try to hit the notes in time, so for competitive matches, spamming isn't an option at all. Now, why don't we talk about difficulty.

DJ MAX RV isn't shy to put you through your paces and destroy you with ridiculous charts that will probably kill your wrist. To say that this game has a high difficulty curve is an understatement but that doesn't mean that the game only caters to players who are willing to put in the time to learn this game. The game rates difficulty on a star scale, 1 being the easiest and 15 being the hardest for those who want to experience carpal tunnel. Getting better at this game is difficult and the game doesn't really help you with it either.

One major gripe I have with this game is there isn't any sort of practice mode where you can replay a section of a song to nail a set of difficult notes, which was a surprise considering how difficult some of the songs can be. The only way of 'practicing' is to play it over and over again and brute force yourself through a song till it finally 'clicks'. This is only really applicable to higher-difficulty songs, but it's still a problem I face when trying higher difficulties outside my comfort zone.

Another great aspect of this game is the multiple different button modes that you can play, 4, 5, 6 or 8. The best part about it is there's nothing pushing you to aim for 8 buttons, if you have the most fun playing 4 buttons then you can just use the 4 button mode only, you'll have a more compact board than the other buttons, but still get high difficulty songs to play on.

If you were expecting a simple rhythm game with just a tracklist of songs to play through trying to get the new high score then you'd be dead wrong. There's freestyle mode that is your standard, choose a song to play on whatever difficulty, online which offers open lobbies and a competitive mode, countless things to unlock (music videos, artwork, etc.), challenges to complete, mission mode, and an air mode.

It seems like the DJ Max series in general does a lot more than your average rhythm game, with an extensive tracklist of "...over 150 unique songs..." in the base game alone, which offers a wide variety of genres along with each of these songs having a music video in the background, that range from a live concert of that song to people creating music videos for these songs specifically. It really does feel like this game goes above and beyond what a rhythm game should strive for.

One aspect that worries me above everything else about this title however, is the fact that the game requires you to have constant internet access, this raises multiple red flags. At some point this game could just be shut down and no longer playable at the flick of a switch, the base game is expensive enough as it is let alone if you dive into DLC territory. I'm unsure why I need constant internet connection even when playing songs solo, but the fact that it's there should be something you think about before even thinking about purchasing this title.

Not exactly an area that you tend to look for in rhythm games, if anything you're only expecting a clean chart that's easy to read notes off. However,DJ MAX RV offers a lot of flexibility and customization with your chart allowing you to mix and match different chart skins and different styled notes. Although this isn't necessary by any means or gives you an advantage, it's nice to have a unique style that makes everyone's chart look different.

DJ MAX RV is something special, it's clear that the developers put in a lot to make this game good and it clearly shows. Even if you just get the base game there's still a lot of stuff to do before you even consider getting the DLC (which there is a lot). If you're new to the game there is quite a difficulty curve to get through, but once it eventually clicks you'll love the game even more. Even for the veterans who have played the countless releases before this game, I think they'll love it as well. The only downside is the constant requirement to be connected to the internet which I can see being the breaking point for some people since the game could be switched off at any point. Overall though, a fantastic rhythm-based game that I almost feel ashamed of for not knowing this series existed for years. Now if you'll excuse me, I have some tendons in my wrist to start snapping...

For more critically honest reviews of mine, check out Metro’s Review Corner

Yakuza Kiwami 2 is the remake of Yakuza 2 that was originally released in 2006. You play as Kazuma Kiryu, who is called back into action after a year of leaving the Tojo Clan regarding a murder which was committed by a rival organization, the Omi Alliance. Kiryu must prevent a war outbreak between the two clans. This being my first Yakuza game I went in with little to no expectations or knowledge about this title, it's safe to say that this game deserves all the praise that it gets. If you’ve never played a Yakuza game, then you’re in for a wild ride.

• So much side content with small storylines to follow and mini-games, with some of them even more fleshed out than the actual main game itself
• Combat is simple but extremely satisfying and fluent
• Mini games that are completely different from the core game help break the game up to avoid it being overly repetitive
• Dialogue is both amusing and serious, the game choices when to use either at appropriate times
• Engaging story that’ll keep you interested throughout, even if you haven’t played the previous game(s)

• Boss battles aren’t interesting and feel dull
• Combat difficulty isn’t balanced well

• Alt-tabbing out the game seems to have trouble figuring out what controller you’re using and assumes you’ve switched to mouse and keyboard, this changes the button prompts and can only be reverted if you restart the game
• Occasionally, fights in the city will fail automatically despite not being anywhere close to death

It isn’t hard to grasp the concept of this franchise, you get approached by a bunch of thugs, they get angry at you, you throw some punches and everyone lands on the ground with weird ragdoll physics. It’s a very fluent and gratifying beat ‘em up that never seems to get dull despite how often you go up against a group or boss. Your attacks are pretty simple, light and heavy attacks, grab and your special attack. A special attack is granted when you get enough energy, which is acquired when you hit an enemy, when the game prompts you to do so, you can use a special move depending on where you are, where your enemy is and if you’re holding a weapon. These play out in a small cutscene off to the side for you to enjoy the pure satisfaction of Kiryu practically impaling his fist into an enemy.

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Balancing on the other hand is practically non-existent even on the harder difficulties and against bosses. You’ll be able to easily punch your way through any gang that stands in your way or bosses that you encounter that might appear intimidating at first. Being able to store weapons that you pick up, especially any bladed weapons, seems like a huge oversight since obviously no matter how strong you are, you can’t block against a blade. This gets exposed the most when you go up against any boss, you simply get out your katana and go slicing up anyone who stands in your way. The special attacks are also generally overpowered, being able to demolish an entire bar or two of the boss's health without breaking a sweat.

To say that Yakuza Kiwami 2 has some side content would be an understatement, to say the least. Despite the need to rush from point A to point B at times in the main story, you’re still free to roam around the city you’re in to talk to people, eat at places, play mini-games and help other people in the city with their problems. Because apparently, Kiryu has all the time in the world to do whatever he wants whenever he wants, which really gives the player a lot of freedom to explore and do practically anything they want in the city.

The types of side missions you’ll encounter aren’t your standard run of the mill missions where a random person asks you to go to this location and recapture this section of the city because it's been overrun by a gang. Each one has a small storyline that acts as a reason to get you involved in that person's problems or the problems that you get into yourself (which happens more often than not, but usually ends up being comical). Sure these NPCs aren’t voice acted, but the dialogue has enough thought and detail for an NPC side mission.

Mini-games are an entirely different scene for this title compared to side missions and you’ll be surprised (in more ways than one…) at what you’ll come across in this title. Some of them feel just as fleshed out as the main game and can distract you for hours on end, whilst others are simple claw machines or arcade games that you can play using your currency. So have fun playing the claw machine for hours on end trying to get every single plushie in the game! Though that being said, don’t be too surprised if you find some… unusual mini-games out there, this is a Japanese game after all…

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Bosses come in a variety of sizes and forms, but the majority of them are the same but with different punches and kicks which isn’t really the main problem (though thinking back to it now, there wasn’t really that much variety with bosses… What made them all feel different was the exciting and lively places and environments you were fighting at that make each one unique and memorable, but I digress). Some of them have blades which you obviously can’t block against but can backstep to avoid getting hit, this is just more of a headache since your block is useless. When you go fist to fist against a boss, however, there isn’t much fluency, you hold block to block their attacks then you attack 2 - 3 times and then rinse and repeat. If you block at the correct moment instead of holding it down then you can parry them which leaves them vulnerable to attacks for a few seconds, though sometimes this can be difficult. That’s about it, depending on how many layers of health the boss has will depend on how long the fight will play out for, it feels like it drags on with nothing interesting happening throughout. It feels like it depends way too much on the special attacks that you can only slowly build up.

The graphics are definitely a show-off, with bright lights all over the cities, it was easy to get lost simply walking down the streets in first-person mode and looking at what the game presented. Granted, it might be a bit too bright and cluttered with so much going on, but for myself personally, I admired and took in everything that I experienced even as I was focused on kicking the living daylight out of thugs who looked at me funny on the streets.

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Yakuza Kiwami 2 definitely lives up to its name with all the praise that it receives, from the hours upon hours of side missions and mini-games that can distract you longer than the main story will. This game thrives off the endless amount of content that it provides along with a satisfying and interesting story and fluent combat system. Sure, the boss battles aren’t that great and might be dull along with some odd design choices here and there, but you can easily overlook and even forget about these smaller issues when you’re too busy beating the hell out of a gang of thugs that looked at you funny. For anyone who hasn’t played Yakuza Kiwami 2, you’d be doing yourself a favour to pick it up when you can, you won’t regret it.

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Batbarian: Testament of the Primordials (Referred to as just Batbarian from now on) was somewhat of a surprise for me in terms of difficulty, since I’ve played through several Metroidvanias in the pastI knew what to expect on the surface. However, this title in particular thoroughly put me through my paces in regards to the boss fights which was somewhat unexpected on first glance of this title. Boss fights is definitely where this game shines the most with exploration and finding secrets coming in close behind it.

• Fun and challenging platforming throughout
• Loads of puzzles and secrets to make your character strong
• Compelling and intriguing story
• Each boss battle is varied and challenging in different ways
• Assist mode which makes the game easier if you’re having too much trouble
• 3 different endings that require you to defeat (or not) different bosses and unlock secret passages
• Dialogue is humours throughout the entire game
• Pips different abilities provide the player with new mechanics to reach new places, make enemies weak and avoid getting hit

• Some odd platforming sections that seemed to need prior knowledge to avoid taking damage
• Sometimes difficult to tell what’s a platform and what’s part of the background
• When there’s loads of enemies on one screen, it really gets cluttered along with the enemies projectiles
• Leveling up is done with a weird wheel that I guess is meant to be random but is slow enough for you to easily upgrade the stat you want, which begs the question of why bother with a mechanic like this?

Exploration is done like any standard Metroidvania, you’ll progress through a maze like cave with certain areas being restricted, requiring some ability to gain access to it. Getting lost or not really knowing where to go next is somewhat part of the experience, giving off a sense of satisfaction when you finally figure out where to go next (or feeling dumb for not trying to do that sooner). You’ll acquire a handful of different abilities but the more unique one is using your magical bat named Pip. You’ll gain new elements for Pip to change to on the fly, being able to change his aura to fire, ice or neutral.

This mechanic isn’t just used to gain access to new places however, you can block enemy projects by using the right element. For example fire can block ice, ice can block fire and neutral can block purple flames, the game utilises this in a number of different ways, most notably with some of the late game bosses that use magic to attack you. Pips’ neutral stat is also used as a light source in the dark areas you explore, you can throw a berry to move Pip ahead to see where you’re going, throw a berry that Pip hates to get him to attack an enemy and throw a stick berry to make Pip stay in one area for longer. These mechanics all work well together and provide extremely valuable against certain bosses.

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To traverse through the dark abyss you’ll need to platform your way around the place, who knew that caves were so conveniently designed this way! As you progress the difficulty of platforming increases, but a considerable amount in certain places. Sometimes figuring out what to do isn’t quite straight forward or easy, so it's lucky that you can damage boost your way through spikes if the path ahead looks too difficult to get through. It's possible, obviously, to get through the entire game without having to damage boost your way through, but sometimes it seems that you’ll take more damage trying to do it the legitimate way than if you purposely took a few hits to get through.

The platforming segments are consistent throughout, and you’ll also be present with a multitude of puzzles to solve to progress. They are mostly self explanatory but sometimes can be slightly confusing if you overlook a pressure plate or switch that gets lost in the background scenery. Puzzles mainly utilise Pips abilities once again, and do require some form of forethought before steaming in and making moves immediately. Though, in some situations where you can mess up a puzzle, you can enter a portal that resets the room allowing you to try again instantly.

Challenge is definitely no exception for this title despite the cute pixel art style that this game inherits, it definitely packs a punch with boss battles and might catch some people off guard. Each boss you encounter is vastly different from the last using new mechanics that you used to platform around that area and explore. But this brings up the age old discussion of fairness. A boss battle has to have a sense of difficulty but also being fair, the obvious franchise that this is most commonly brought up in would be Dark Souls. This game by no means shares common ground with DS, the only thing these titles loosely have in common is challenge. Batbarian for the most part is fair, you’ll have to learn the boss’s moves and react accordingly, however there is one particular boss that crosses the line.

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Until you reach near the end of the game the bosses will be challenging, you’ll be killed countless times trying to learn their movesets before you eventually get the hang of it. However, when you put two bosses together and expect the player to defeat them both simultaneously then it crosses the line of being fair. This boss caused me the most trouble and personally was the hardest in the title and for good reason. With one of them throwing projectiles whilst the other using an extremely long lance that can span almost the entire width of the screen, as well as pressure plates that shoot out fire from either side, then you're in for a rough fight. This might’ve been passable if this boss was optional but alas, it wasn’t.I can see a lot of players giving up at that point just because of the unfair nature of the fight. Sure, it's doable (barely defeated them with half a heart of health myself) but it does feel unfair with too much going on to really keep track of at once.

As you progress and explore this mysterious abyss inside of a mountain, you’ll come across different areas that are distinctly different from one another both visually and mechanically. No two areas feel the same and they are even coloured differently on the map so you can correlate them to their areas. Some enemies are area specific and manage to blend in with the environments accurately to make it look like they’ve always been there.

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Batbarian is a satisfying and challenging Metroidvania that provides hundreds of secrets and a compelling story line that I won’t spoil here. It definitely proves to be a challenge, particularly with its bosses despite the charming pixel art style that it uses. The mechanics used for your bat Pip are fleshed out and utilised in different ways to help you on your journey in more ways than one. Overall, it's a great Metroidvania that I would recommend to anyone who likes this particular genre.

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With the world being how it should be, people getting along, things going well and everyone generally having a good time, the devil wants to cause mayhem, cause bloodshed among the world. So the devil cursed the world, causing mindless beasts to destroy their home and for some odd reason, the humans didn’t seem to like this. So much so that they rebelled and got a mighty wizard to break this curse, this caused the devil to call upon a champion of his own, Stingy Jack, he would be offered freedom to the afterlife instead of a rotting spirit in hell, but in return, Jack must find the wizard and take him down to ensure that earth will forever be a reckless mess.

• Some easy puzzle segments to break up the platforming and combat parts
• Levels are very bright, vibrant sometimes dark and gloomy to give each of them a distinctive feel and look
• Bosses have a variety of attack patterns, whilst they aren’t really that difficult, it’s still satisfying to take them down
• Level design gives a good balance of both combat-oriented gameplay and platforming segments
• Environments and scenery are very detailed

• Combat is pretty minimal with simply spamming the attack button as Jack goes towards enemies and every now and then dodging attacks. Could’ve been made more interesting by adding at least a charge attack or a light / heavy attack
• The chase sequences, even though they aren’t necessarily bad, are boring and just not as interesting as other aspects of the game
• Rather short (completed within 5 hours) with little replay value

As you embark on your quest to slay the wizard for your chance at freedom and to be alive again, you’ll come across many new places and characters to interact with. From farms to swamps, from graveyards to castles you’ll travel around trying to track down your prey. Each level has small segments in them where you take off your pumpkin head and enter a small area to help you progress. These parts are more puzzle-based but nothing that you’ll have to wrack your brain around in order to understand.

Platforming feels tight and easy to control, as you would expect nowadays. Nothing too complicated or fancy going on with the platforming segments besides the odd part here and there that you might have to think about instead of going headfirst. One of the segments that seemed more boring however was the ‘chase’ sequences. There seemed to be at least one of these in each of the levels with the screen constantly moving and you’d have to move accordingly to avoid taking damage and dying. Admittedly, I enjoyed the first one where you had to run through a burning barn but after that, it just felt like a way to prolong the game a bit more. These sequences are fine I guess, but it wasn’t really that enjoyable compared to everything else.

At the end of each level, you’ll encounter a boss to defeat, whether they’re trying to protect the planet from your evil deeds or just want you gone. Sometimes you’ll come across these bosses early on in the level as they taunt you as you make your way up to them, they have somewhat of a personality and flair to them, at least the ones that talk to you as you progress through the level. When it comes to the bosses themselves, there is a decent amount of creativity going on to keep things interesting. Even though they aren’t necessarily that difficult, it's still satisfying to take them down and gain a weapon from them to use in the future. The attacks are portrayed on the ground so you have time to move out of the way before they pummel you to death.

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In the long run, Pumpkin Jack might take you around 5 - 6 hours to complete and for the full price of this title, it feels rather short… However this doesn’t automatically make it a bad game by any stretch of the imagination, I still thoroughly enjoyed my time with this title despite the rather short playtime. The price isn’t necessarily justified by the amount of time you get out of it, in this case anyway, but more by the quality of the game itself and all the little details in the environment and the humorous dialogue that you’ll come to appreciate.

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Despite the fun combat, it does take a very spammy approach without the need for much strategy or thought, not that I was expecting extensive combat in the first place mind you. Your two maneuverability moves are attack and dodge so you can imagine what the combat is like when you come across a group of enemies. The combat isn’t bad or boring per se, but it just feels too simple without any sort of charge attack just to add a bit of variety into the mix. You do have a few weapons that you can switch on the fly, but these don’t really have much in terms of variety besides slightly longer or shorter range. There wasn’t really a time where I felt like a specific weapon came in handy, so the majority of my time I used my most recently acquired weapon.

Every level has a very distinctive look to it, using dark and gloomy colours to portray a more spooky atmosphere to light and vibrant fires as you infiltrate the castle. You’ll never get bored exploring new levels that you unlock, they are all very pleasing to look at and have a lot of attention to detail put into them. Characters, enemies and bosses are all distinctively different from one another and provide each level with a different set of enemies and characters to interact with. As far as quality goes, this game has a lot of it in the short amount of time you’ll be playing this game.

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Pumpkin Jack isn’t a bad game at all, it has humorous dialogue, lots of attention to detail in the environments, fun combat (despite it being simplistic) and is just a joy to play. But what brings it down the most is the low playtime that you’ll get from playing through it, the 5 hours seems pitiful for purchasing this game for the full price even if the quality is high. Unless you’re dying for a decent platformer then go ahead, but if you can at least wait for a sale then I’d highly recommend doing so.

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Unrailed is a 1 - 4 player co-op game about building tracks for a constantly moving train and trying to reach as far as possible, you’ll traverse through different biomes all with their own unique mechanic to work around which brings more challenge to the table. Despite this being a rather enjoyable game, the player base seems to be rather low so unless you have some friends to join then you might have a hard time finding anyone to team up with.

• Gameplay changes to accommodate how many members are on your team to balance the difficulty
• Easy to pick up, hard to master gameplay
• Different biomes offer unique mechanics that you’ll have to work around
• A generous amount of different addons and upgrades for your train to help you out
• Easy enough to communicate with icons
• Randomly generated levels gives the game some replay value
• Different gameplay options add an optional save feature, more difficulties and gamemodes

• Not many active players
• Single-player experience is passable, but feels clunky and annoying to command the robot that helps you
• No voting system when upgrading your train. If you’re playing with random people then the fastest person can spend your bolts to upgrade the train
• Arcade type gameplay might get slightly repetitive after a couple of hours since there isn’t much of an end goal

Unrailed offers a simple yet compelling experience with mechanics that are very easy to understand and to get to grips with. You chop wood from trees and mine iron from stone in a randomly generated world to create tracks, you use these tracks to ensure the train doesn’t crash and end your run. Despite how simple it might sound, the game gets more intense and difficult as you progress through each biome. New mechanics are added to slow you down and limit you in some way. For example, the desert biome doesn’t provide as much water which is needed to cool down your train to avoid it from burning, the snow biome makes you go slow whilst walking through snow, hell doesn’t provide any water so you’ll have to find other means of gathering water and so on.

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Along the way as you stop at nearby stations, you’ll be able to upgrade your train with a number of different carriages and various upgrades to them. From dynamite to auto mining nearby resources there really is a lot to consider, however some of them feel more worth your time than others. With the addition of limiting the amount of carriages you can have depending on how upgraded your main engine is, you’ll have to plan accordingly depending on what biome you are in and which you are heading to. If you’re playing online however, it's easy for someone to simply take an upgrade or a new carriage and add it to the train without any sort of voting system.

You can have up to a team of four players on your team which both help ease the burden of having to keep track of all the different mechanics (gather resources, building tracks, cooling the engine etc.) but also makes it more hectic in the process. With everyone dashing around at later stages of the run, you’ll probably hit into other players which makes them drop the item they’re holding. As you can imagine, this forces each player to be careful when dashing around as the train gets faster and you all have to be quicker and more efficient to keep up with it. The game also accommodates bigger teams by making the game slightly more challenging, the train will start off at a faster speed if you have a full team compared to if it was a team of two.

I feel a game like this lacks a particular end goal, since it's more of an arcade styled game there isn’t much to aim for besides trying to travel the furthest which is completely fine. Some people may enjoy this but for me, it would’ve been nice to have something to aim for rather than a never ending world. Though the randomly generated world does give the game more replay value, at the end of the day you’ll still be chopping trees and mining stone no matter how randomly generated the world is.

As a team you’ll need to be synchronised with one another so to speak or at least be aware of what's going on around you to be as efficient as possible. Despite the gameplay being easier to handle with more people on your team, the game accommodates for that and makes the train move faster. It’s very satisfying to be able to have a full team with everyone having their own job and efficiently building tracks to progress.

Unfortunately, unless you have a few friends who already own this title then you’ll more than likely struggle with finding a full team or sometimes anyone at all to team up with. Even though this game was fully released not too long ago, the player base is very low which might turn some people away from this title if they plan on planning with random people. If you’re planning to play single-player however you’ll be rather disappointed as you're given a robot to command to help you out. This is fine but clearly superior and not as enjoyable as playing with other random people as you’ll always have to keep half an eye out for what the bot is doing and try to plan ahead. Sometimes commanding the bot can be frustrating,

Every biome that you explore has its own unique soundtrack that suits the environment perfectly, it doesn’t get too repetitive and is fine for what it is.

As you progress through each run, you’ll traverse different biomes that offer a variety of different environments. These biomes are very distinctive from one another and offer a different change of scenery regularly with vastly different colours to ensure you're not staring at the same forest area for 3 hours straight.

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Unrailed was a fun experience to play with friends or the random person I’d find in matchmaking every now and then. That being said, the player base is so low at the moment that you might not find a single person to join in matchmaking which only leads you to the single player experience which isn’t that great. This game is fun no doubt, but you’ll definitely want to play with some friends who own the game to ensure you actually have a team to play with.

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Hotshot Racing is an arcade style racing game that honestly doesn’t have much to offer. Despite the controls simulating the feel of an arcade racing game accurately and the art style fitting the genre fairly well, there are some odd design choices that should’ve been revamped or at least looked into as the game would be releasing on Steam rather than on an actual arcade.

• Definitely captures the feel of a nostalgic arcade racing game
• Cars have different stats that are suited better for drifting, top speed or acceleration
• Soundtrack and art style have a very distinctive sound and feel to them

• All 16 tracks and bland and boring
• Rubberbanding 'balancing' and extremely aggressive AI
• AI are extremely aggressive and can completely mess you up by ramming into you and making you spin out of control
• You might get 5 hours max out of this game if you complete Grand Prix on all difficulties
• Winning races earns you money, however you can only purchase cosmetic items, no upgrades or purchasing new cars
• Quips from your character get annoying quickly, either have more voice lines or make them speak less
• Nobody playing online
• Despite there being at least some variation with the environments, there are some repeats of structures and environments

Put plain and simple, Hotshot Racing tries to simulate an arcade game and in that regard it hits the nail on the head. The controls feel responsive as you race down the track at high speeds, drifting around corners whilst taking over cars and utilising your boost at just the right time to steal the victory at the end of the race. However, apart from this, there isn’t really much else to boast about for this game…

First off let's discuss the tracks you’ll be racing on, you’ll be given 16 tracks in total all which are only slightly different from one another and really aren’t interesting to race on whatsoever. It’s not like I was expecting Mario Kart styled tracks in this game, but something more than just a circle or oval with extra turns here and there would’ve made it more interesting. For some reason, I quite like the idea of tracks crossing over each other in one way or another so you can see other cars that are behind or in front of me, but Hotshot Racing doesn’t provide that at all. All the tracks are flat with only a couple of sharp turns that force you to drift hard to get around them smoothly.

It doesn’t feel like there was much thought creating these tracks either, there aren’t enough hard turns to warrant a drift every time but you're basically forced to drift as much as you can because you need the boost. It also doesn’t help when the track has barely any turns that aren’t sharp enough and so you find yourself doing small drifts on long straights to fill up your boost. It's not like boost isn’t necessary though, especially on the harder difficulties since all the other racers will be using boost as well and are practically always on your tail no matter how fast you go.

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Winning these races aren’t all that satisfying either, there’s no sense of progression since you win money and only use it to purchase cosmetic skins for your racer (who you barely ever see so what’s the point) or your cars. It would’ve been a better idea to at least upgrade your car with better stats or purchase new cars as that would encourage the player more to play through the Grand Prix on the harder difficulties and try to earn gold on them.

AI racers for some reason are extremely aggressive and love to bump into the back of you causing you to occasionally spin out of control. On the expert difficulty if you spin out of control and crash into the side of the track coming to a complete stop, then you’ve pretty much lost the race depending on how far into the track you are. I do remember that arcade style racing games had aggressive AI with titles such as Burnout where you’d constantly be smashing into other cars and causing them to crash. But in Hotshot Racing, you’ll simply bump into them and they’ll lose a bit of speed before catching right back up to you. It’s practically impossible to secure first place during a track since, no matter how hard you try (even if you use all your boosts in one go), second and third place will be able to catch up with you and you’ll constantly be battling it out for first place.

Rubberbanding AI seems to be very aggressive also, even on the easiest difficulties you will find second and third place right behind you in seconds no matter how fast you go. It's not much of a problem since you can easily steal the victory with a boost right before the finish line, however the rubberbanding on hard or expert is where it shows off the most and makes the game more unfair than challenging. Expert mode practically consists of being in the lead for a certain amount of time until the racer behind you bumps into your back and moves you forcibly to the left making you crash into the side rails, it's not challenging it's just unfair and frustrating. Sometimes you’ll be in the middle of 4 or 5 other racers all crashing into one another making it pretty difficult to escape from. You might consider that rubberbanding AI like this is part of the arcade experience and I would be all for that if I was playing this in an arcade, but I’m not. I’ve bought this game to play whenever I want to and don’t want to be frustrated with mechanics or something that tries to make me spend another £1 like the arcade games do.

https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2264878766

The one mode that could’ve brought this game out from the dirt was the online mode, however this mode is dead in the water and as we all know, you can’t drive a car that’s submerged in water. I never really had hopes for finding anyone online even when I saw the trailer for this game since online indie games like this usually don’t have an active community of online players, however there was still a small glimmer of hope that I held onto. It’s a shame because if there was an active community, then it would’ve gained at least some replay value as you raced against random people.

The fast soundtracks add to the intensity of each race, with the majority of each track having their own old school soundtrack. Similar to the graphics, the soundtrack has a distinctively nostalgic sound to it as does the announcer's voice. However, their voice does get more annoying the longer that you play as you hear them talk every time you reach a checkpoint which is roughly every 20 - 30 seconds.

The polygon graphics fit the style of an old school arcade racing game very well, there is at least some variation in the places that you race and give off a slight sense of nostalgia. However with such a short list of tracks, you would’ve thought that you wouldn’t see a repeat of structures you’ve seen before. Unfortunately if you play through the 4 Grand Prixs then you’ll certainly see some familiar structures which could’ve been replaced with something different.

https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2264878669

Hotshot Racing is nothing more than what it says on the packet, a simple arcade racing game. All the tracks are boring and dull with no creativity put into them, the AI is unnecessarily aggressive with extreme rubberbanding difficulty and you’ll be lucky to get 5 hours out of this game if you want to complete all 4 Grand Prixs on every difficulty. Overall, this game lacks content and for the asking price, you’d have to wait for a massive sale before even considering to purchase

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Crown Trick is a turn-based rogue-lite that tries its hardest to be something different, but ultimately falls flat and gets repetitive very quickly. Despite the appealing art style and the somewhat unique combat mechanics, as a rogue-lite it misses the mark in a lot of places and consequently suffers with low replay value that is vital in this genre.

• Loads of different weapons and types to choose from as well as them having their own type
• Turn-based combat lets you pause and plan out your actions before committing to them
• Spells are plentiful with a variety of different elements
• Visually appealing and eye catching

• Combat feels the same most of the time, gets old very quickly and can be frustrating with how limited and simplistic it is
• Encourages you to use spells but you never have enough MP in boss battles where it's practically essential for some bosses
• Some bosses drag on for way too long
• The majority of attacks are portrayed on the ground showing you where they will attack and in how many turns, on the rare occasion a boss will have an attack that doesn’t get telegraphed so you just have to guess when he’ll do it

Crown Trick uses turn-based combat on a grid where you take it in turns to move and attack enemies in the room. It's rather simplistic and therefore lacks the strategy of what you might’ve expected from a grid turn-based combat system. The only unique mechanic Crown Trick has to offer is the ability to stun (known as breaking) enemies after attacking them a number of times depending on the enemy. You’ll constantly be breaking every enemy you encounter to render them stunned before spamming attacks to kill them, this makes each fight feel exactly the same and hinders the replay value of this game severely.

Despite this, there is some strategy involved in the combat using spells and items to attack as well as carefully planned movement to ensure you don’t take damage. Enemy attacks are portrayed on the ground informing you on how many turns before they attack, though on the rare occasion of specific bosses they won’t display this information and instantly attack. This is when teleporting (known as blinking) comes into play since you’ll certainly find yourself in a situation where you can’t avoid the damage by moving 1 tile away. You are however limited with how many times you can use blink as you are given 3 uses at the start of each room, though can earn more uses if you can keep up your combo by breaking enemies in a row.

As you progress you’ll find different types of weapons that have different ranges, from guns, gauntlets, axes, swords etc. Each type has a different amount of range and seemed to be more necessary than the damage of the weapon in the early stages. Axes can be swung round hitting enemies 9 tiles around you, guns to shoot from 3 tiles in front of you, swords can swing 3 tiles in front of you and so on. You can also use spells from defeating mini-bosses, these are more interesting than the weapons you’ll equip as these spells can do elemental damage and are usually highly damaging.

Bosses that you encounter at the end of every floor require at least a bit of strategy to defeat, using the spells that you’ve acquired are almost necessary in order to deal with them effectively. Some of the bosses feel unbalanced however, being able to teleport around the room and spawn in enemies really can drag out the battle to last way longer than it should. The variety of bosses is also lacking, so you’ll almost always fight the same boss over and over again when you go through multiple runs.

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Arguably, you could say that Crown Trick relies too much on spells to defeat specific bosses that can heal themselves. It doesn’t feel balanced as your weapons are usually inferior to your spells in terms of damage and the fact you constantly run out of MP really does make it frustrating. To gain MP you need to lower the bosses health to a certain point, but if you’ve already run out of MP and are just using your regular weapon then you’ve pretty much already lost. I’ve only encountered one boss like this, but the fact that this boss is in the game makes it feel so unbalanced.

The varied gameplay in Crown Trick definitely boils down to the large arsenal of weapons and spells you equip. The rooms do seem to lack variety, despite going through the same 4 floors every time, you’ll come across familiar rooms rather quickly. The random nature of Crown Trick is clearly more focused on weapon variety rather than room variety which takes a toll on the replay value which is more than essential in any rogue-lite title.

Upgrades that you can purchase at the end of every run feel extremely underwhelming, uninteresting and only slightly helpful. From purchasing permanent stat upgrades to being able to hold more shards (the currency you use to purchase upgrades) at the start of every run, to holding more gold at the start of every run, have more uses for your potion, begin with a key at the start of your run etc. It also doesn’t help that these upgrades can be extremely expensive later down the upgrade tree and never feels like it isn’t worth the time. A lot more could’ve been done with the upgrades, just to be more interesting and encourage the player to purchase upgrades or save for interesting ones that would at least slightly change the way you fight.

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Unlocking new weapons and relics is as simple as finding blueprints whilst in dungeons and finishing the floor. Though I never really remembered what I had unlocked, it would’ve been nice to have the weapon to try out at the start of the next run or something just to test it out. Relics can be collected and bought in shops which give you additional benefits that will be somewhat game changing, however the majority of them rely too much on RNG to be useful, whilst others for some reason have negative effects that always seemed to outway the benefit.

The soundtrack is very simplistic and never changes unless you're going up against a mini boss or the final boss of the floor, there seems to be a lack of variety overall as there is only a single soundtrack for each floor. There seems to be a lack of atmosphere for each area, the environments don’t really add much to it and neither does the soundtrack.

The art style of Crown Trick is generally very appealing and eye catching with bright and vivid environments used in the different areas to make them feel distinctly different from one another. The enemies are appealing with associated colours making it easy to distinguish what elemental spells they’ll have to attack and fit in perfectly with the area that you are in.

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Crown Trick has some interesting concepts to run with but it's poorly executed and feels like a lackluster rogue-lite. The art style is visually appealing but the combat suffers tremendously with its simplicity and limits you to the point of frustration sometimes. It becomes overly boring and repetitive when traversing the dungeons and is only slightly compelling when fighting some bosses but never feels truly satisfying. There are a lot of better Rogue-lites to choose from than Crown Trick that offer a more satisfying and enjoyable experience.

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Atomicrops is a weird hybrid between being a farming simulator, bullet hell and a rogue-like all in one game. Your goal is to defend the last standing farm in a post-apocalyptic world filled with mutilated enemies wanting to destroy the last farm in existence and murder you. Despite the concept being interesting for the first few hours, it shoots itself in the foot with little variety and random factors in the game that really hurt the replay value of this title, which is extremely important for any rogue-like game.

• An interesting concept for the first couple of hours, but becomes repetitive quickly
• Art style looks decent, the plants you grow especially stand out

• The game really tries to rush you with the limited amount fo time for each day
• Gets overly repetitive as the game doesn’t offer enough varied content or random factors to make each run feel different
• Some enemies charge at you from off-screen that can result in a cheap damage
• The difficulty when you progress through the years doesn’t add many new enemies, only overwhelms you with more of the same enemies with slightly different attack patterns
• Some weapons are clearly superior than others and, needs balancing
• No drastic overhaul to the seasons in terms of visuals is disappointing

The basic premise behind Atmocrops is an interesting one, during the limited day time your crops are safe from enemies and you’re free to explore the surrounding lands that are split into different biomes. These areas are filled with small camps that will reward you with seeds and item upgrades for killing marked enemies that are guarding them, as well as general enemies roaming about. Once night falls however, your farm will be attacked by waves of enemies that you’ll have to fend off till the morning if you want your crops to survive the night.

Only giving the player 2 minutes everyday to do everything seems extremely limiting considering you have to travel to different biomes, kill enemies for seeds, go back to your farm, sow your seeds, water the seeds, wait for them to grow and then harvest them. Sure you can do all this during the night as well, but just to put into perspective, it takes roughly an entire day and night to clear out a single biome. This mechanic makes you play faster but not better, taking unnecessary damage from enemies that you could’ve easily avoided if the time limit wasn’t so strict.

You’ll encounter different types in the biomes that you explore and whilst most enemies are fair with their attacks giving you a chance to avoid them, one enemy in particular is rather cheap at lowering your health. In each biome there’s an enemy that charges at you, however the problem is that they can charge at you off-screen giving you little to no time to react and move out of the way before taking damage. If I was able to see the enemy whilst it was preparing to charge it wouldn’t be a problem, but countless times I’ve been hit by a charging enemy that came onto the screen from nowhere with no prior warning. The game’s meant to be hard, but this is just cheap damage rather than a difficult enemy to avoid.

In order to properly defend your farm at night, you’ll need to purchase various farm animals, weapons, collect passive items and various defensive units to help defend the farm and make it more efficient to grow and harvest crops that reward you with money. There is however, an odd design choice when purchasing a weapon from the shop which happens to break said weapon on the next day (unless you have a specific character or upgrade the has a chance to prevent the weapon breaking). In the earlier years, you can get away with using your standard weapon that does fairly low damage, but as you progress through the years and they get increasingly more difficult, your standard weapon won’t hold up.

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Each season is broken down into 3 days, on which, the final day you’ll be put up against a boss who doesn’t reward you with anything that interesting whether you defeat it or wait the night out. Unfortunately these bosses are either fairly easy or downright unfair to defeat depending on what weapon you have at the time.

Rogue-likes have always been repetitive but often offer a different and unique experience by changing and randomising different factors, however this is not the case for Atomicrops. There’s not nearly enough content, variety or random factors to keep the game interesting for very long, to the point that each run feels practically the same. The bosses are the same every season, the biomes you explore always feel the same, no new enemies are introduced as you progress through the years and the weapons that become available in the shop are very limited. For a rogue-like, Atmoicrops definitely misses the mark by a long shot in terms of replay value.

As you explore the biomes you’ll find NPCs to save that are held hostage in some camps, they will provide you with bonuses and extra stats for the foreseeable runs when you purchase them. Some upgrades seem rather pointless, with such a small upgrade that it’s practically useless (example: an additional 1% chance for your gun not to break the day after you purchase it) whilst others are more noticeably practical to help you progress through the years.

Progression is made when you complete 4 seasons and finish the run, you’ll be awarded with the next year that ‘ramps’ up the difficulty the higher you go in the years. Even though the difficulty does get noticeably more challenging the more that you progress, I couldn’t help but notice how instead of creating new enemies with harder attack patterns to dodge, they just decide to cram more enemies on the screen to satisfy the bullet hell genre of this title. This was a major disappointment, and only further discouraged me to keep making progress in this title. With such little variety in practically everything, what’s the point in trying to get to the final year?

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Nothing really stood out all that much with the soundtrack, it was all fine with the small amount of variety when you enter a new biome but apart from that it didn’t stand out that much. The sound of the plants happily yelling in a high pitched tone was rather distinctive, and helped with realising which plants had fully grown to harvest.

The overall art style is very clean and detailed, I especially liked the way that each plant that you crop has some kinda face that really adds a sense of charm to the game. I was slightly disappointed by the lack of change in the environment when you progressed through the seasons, for example, I couldn’t see any snow in winter, even in the snow biome. There seems to be a clear lack of detail to the environments since they just look bland and boring compared to the enemies that you encounter.

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At best, Atmoicrops is a bare-bones rogue-like that doesn’t offer enough content or random factors to make each run feel unique or different from the last. After completing the first year of the game, you’ll be playing through the same bosses again and the same enemies only in larger numbers and being more aggressive. For the cost of the game, you’d be better of getting any of the other countless rogue-likes that have much more content and replay value than this one.

This product was reviewed using a free key provided by the Developers

Redneck Ed Astro Monsters Show is a beat ‘em up where you get your face ripped off by a girl and after chasing her you are then beamed up to a space game show where you try to win your face back. This title primarily focuses on boss battles but also tries implementing some platforming as well, similar to Cuphead but in a more traditional beat ‘em up fashion. However, the experience I had with Redneck Ed was extremely frustrating and annoying to say the least.

• Each difficulty of the stages adds a new element to make the battle more difficult
• Artistically the game has a lot of style to it
• The designs of the bosses are very unique

• Controls feel stiff and clunky sometimes and too floaty other times, making platforming a struggle
• No invulnerability frames when you get hit
• Super moves are underwhelming
• AI can be dumb sometimes
• Specific bosses are too tanky with high damaging attacks
• Some bosses practically force you to stun lock them in the corner to defeat them
• Riddled with numerous bugs that add to the already frustrating game
• Lacks general polish
• Boss battles can be painstakingly tedious and dull

• After completing every level and getting sent back to the overworld, my character kept doing the finishing animation again
• Messages disappear and then reappear whilst scrolling
• Screen stopped scrolling for no reason
• Somehow I managed to get a gold rank after dying on a stage and exiting the game
• Music stops randomly every now and then
• Achievements don’t work
• Once you’ve entered the final boss battle, his health bar will appear in every other boss battle you go to
• Sometimes when you’re in the air or in animation and pause to give up, the game doesn’t do anything
• In the final boss, my character got stuck sliding across the floor not being able to do anything, not even open the pause menu. Had to restart the game.
• When you’ve completed the game and get brought back to the main menu, there’s no option to continue your data. You have to restart the game for the continue button to appear again

On your quest to try and get your face back, you’ll have to work your way up through the ranks to prove that you are worthy enough to take on the final boss in this game show. You’ll start at floor 1 and make your way up to the top by collecting stars after defeating bosses and waves of enemies that will reward you with medals. Each stage has the standard 3 medals, the rewards that you can obtain can be more stars, an effect card or a bunch of likes (your currency). These medals can be obtained by completing the specific condition that it asks for. For example, you might have to defeat a boss within a certain time limit or not take any damage which is extremely difficult due to your clunky and weird feeling controls.

As you progress through the game you’ll be able to upgrade certain aspects of your character (health, hold more effect cards, hold more consumables etc.) and learn new moves and super moves as you collect more stars. These moves are almost a necessity by the time you reach the final boss, and it was clear which moves were superior to others in terms of damage. However, depending on what boss you are up against, you will have to change your strategy. The superpowers are a thing but they’re rather underwhelming and don’t really offer much in terms of damage compared to your normal attacks.

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Redneck Ed primarily focuses its gameplay around boss battles with a simpler approach to them compared to more traditional boss battles. There won’t necessarily be multiple phases to each boss (though sometimes a new element gets thrown into the mix) but instead, once you’ve defeated them on the easy difficulty you then move onto the next difficulty. They’ll have new attacks, maybe some enemies will spawn, fewer platforms to jump around on etc. Whilst this all sounds great, the way that the game implements these bosses are more frustrating than enjoyable to fight against for a number of reasons.

Sometimes you’ll come up against bosses that are balanced to give you a fighting chance to defeat them. Though, you’ll eventually come across specific bosses that are too tanky for their own good and can kill you within two hits (even with health upgrades). The only way that I could defeat these bosses was to stun lock them in a corner and using the strong attack to cancel their attack animation and slowly wither down their health. I’m not complaining that the game is too difficult, I get that it’s meant to be challenging. But all that enjoyable challenge is destroyed by the bad controls and numerous bugs. I’ll give the game credit for having a handful of unique bosses all with different types of attacks, but it just didn’t feel satisfying in the slightest to defeat the more difficult ones because of the bad controls.

This title is definitely a challenge, half of that challenge is due to the bosses moves, environmental hazards, enemies etc. and the other half stems from the way this game controls. More often than not I would get more frustrated because my character moved weirdly than getting annoyed with the enemy or boss I was up against. You have these weird floaty and other times too stiff controls to work with. This leads to numerous deaths that get borderline rage-inducing, not because the boss was too difficult, but because of the controls that never felt right.

The controls aren’t the only thing that makes this game annoyingly difficult, some of the gameplay design choices seem extremely overlooked. When you take damage you’ll be stuck in a small animation to indicate that you’ve taken a hit, but if you keep getting hit whilst stuck in this animation you keep taking damage. This was extremely apparent with one particular boss that had a bullet hell-like attack that would drain your health. When it came to the stages that were more beat ‘em up style, this wouldn’t be much of a problem as the enemies would just stand there and wait for you to get up.

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The soundtrack throughout is rather unique, although it doesn’t have that much variation I still have to give credit on the fact that it sounds very different from other games which helps it stand out from the crowd. Though there seems to be a lack of sounds from enemies and even my character when he is walking or jumping etc.

The one thing that this game has going for it is the art style, a lot of time and dedication clearly went into everything that was made, from the bosses to the backgrounds and levels. It’s unfortunate that it seems like the developers paid too much attention to the artistic side rather than the fundamental side. Even if you have the most appealing graphics, if the gameplay is poor then people aren’t going to play the game.

Practically everything about Redneck Ed feels off, from the weird clunky controls that never feel right to the painstakingly tedious and overly drawn out boss battles that don’t feel satisfying to defeat as well as the countless bugs I encountered. The art style is probably the best thing this game has going for it, which is a shame since this could’ve been a great game if the mechanics and controls where worked on more. For the time being, I wouldn’t recommend this game in its current state.

This product was reviewed using a free key provided by the Developers

Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair is nothing short of an excellent Donkey Kong Country styled 2D platformer with smooth and tight controls, accompanied with elegantly designed levels. On top of tons of secrets to find and the unique charming soundtracks of each level, this title is definitely one of the better modern 2D platformers.

• Tight, responsive and smooth controls
• You’ll have less maneuver abilities depending on whether you have Laylee with you or not
• All the levels have alternate states, some of them will be frozen, flooded, more enemies etc.
• You can access and complete the Impossible Lair (final level) whenever you want
• Elegant level design that allows you to speedrun through levels
• Secrets are cleverly hidden
• Overworld has loads of secrets and is made to feel like its own level
• Tonics can modify the game to make it more or less challenging
• Each level has its twist on the original soundtrack to fit the environment

• Sometimes when losing Laylee she’ll fly through objects you can’t get past or too high that you can’t reach
• Hardcore platform fans might find the game too easy till the final level
• The difficulty spikes from the final chapter to the Impossible Lair which definitely lives up to its name
• Sometimes you can’t see the platform below you that the game expects you to land on

• Occasionally, the conveyor belts won’t move you at all
• Thinking cloud stuck got on the screen
• When warping to chapter 10 you won’t be able to enter the level, have to walk out to the overworld and then back in

Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair has a rather interesting concept allowing you to enter the Impossible Lair whenever you want, it’s entirely possible to complete the game within half an hour if you’re extremely good at platformers. However, it’s more than likely that you won’t put yourself through that torture and instead go through each chapter (level) to collect bees, these bees that you save will give you an additional hit point in the Impossible Lair to make it... A bit less impossible…

All of these chapters have elegantly designed levels that might start off very easy, but do eventually get slightly more difficult as you go on. There are tons of secrets along with 5 T.W.I.T coins in each chapter to collect which are mandatory to unlock Towzers’ paywalls which is literally a wall that you can’t bypass until you’ve paid the require T.W.I.T coins to unlock it. This might be slightly annoying to some people who don’t like going back to play previous levels to acquire previously missed T.W.I.T coins but they aren’t that difficult to find so it shouldn’t be much of a problem.

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These chapters also cater to both hardcore and casual fans of platformers, there are loads of checkpoints throughout each chapter and if you die a certain amount of times on a specific section then you’re given the option to bypass that section and skip to the next checkpoint. It’s rather nice for a game to try and make it easy enough for newcomers to pick up and play whilst also giving the hardcore players a tougher time. However, I feel like there needed to be more options for the hardcore fans as the only really difficult part of the game that I constantly struggled on was the Impossible Lair. You can equip tonics to make the game more challenging but there aren’t that many to increase its difficulty.

Each chapter that you access also has an alternative level based around the original one but with a different concept. You can access these levels by flooding the chapter, turning on the electricity, freezing the book etc. This then makes the original level modified to become a new level with different mechanics and a different route to take. These levels can be flipped, frozen over, flooded, turned into a vertical level etc. Even these alternative levels clearly have had a lot of time put into them since the level looks similar to the original but plays differently to how you’ve modified them.

As far as difficulty goes, the chapters steadily increase as you progress introducing new enemies with different moves. It’s rather clever how each level has its own unique mechanic to teach you since the Impossible Lair combines everything that you’ve come across into one very challenging level. As the title suggests, the final level (The Impossible Lair) definitely lives up to its name as the final chapter doesn’t even come close to how difficult The Impossible Lair is. Some people might find this spike in difficult rather frustrating since it can take multiple attempts to make it to the end, however the game does allow you to start at the beginning of the stage you got to with the number of bees you had at that point.

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A unique feature with this title is the fact that when you take a hit you’ll lose Laylee who flies about for a few seconds before completely leaving the screen. In this time, you’ll have a chance to collect Laylee again to regain that extra hit before dying. However, depending on whether you have Laylee with you or not will alter which moves you can do. For example, having Laylee you can twirl whilst in the air to get a little bit more air time and fall slightly slower, but without Laylee you won’t be able to twirl at all. Its a rather unique way of punishing the player and forces you to try and play more carefully so you have the upper hand and can use all these abilities to your advantage.

With only a limited amount of moves, it’s surprising how smooth and tight the controls are to make it feel satisfying and enjoyable to play through. Not only does every move you make feel smooth and satisfying to pull off even if it’s not difficult, but there’s also momentum that you carry with you that never feels off or weird since most of the levels feel like they were built around running through them without stopping. At the same time, if you wanted to take it slow at specific sections because they look overwhelming or you weren’t prepared then that’s completely fine too, the level design caters for both.

With 20 chapters each with their own alternative level its a surprise that the majority of them all have their own unique soundtracks. Since most of them have very different environments and atmospheres to them, each soundtrack compliments that environment that you're in extremely well. The music even changes slightly when you enter different areas in the level.

Each level has a lot of attention to detail put into them, even the backgrounds which you don't normally pay that much attention to has a lot more detail than is necessary. However, you can appreciate how each level looks drastically different from the others and the way that each alternative level also has it's own unique style. Everything in this game seems to have a lot of detail put into it and it really shows.

Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair is an extremely good 2D platformer that sets new standards to how this genre should be made. It's full of elegantly designed levels accompanied with fluent and satisfying controls that never get old or boring to mess around with. Despite the game only being challenging towards the end, this title is definitely one of the better modern 2D platformers that you can play. If you're itching for a new platformer then you've found what you're looking for.

This product was reviewed using a free key provided by the Developers