Recent reviews by Mistiry Shak

Mystery titles usually leave me disappointed by not letting me actually get to take an active role in deduction, choosing instead to explain it to me while I watch. In that moment I am immediately pulled out of the suspension of disbelief and lose the ability to feel like I was "the detective" in the story. Obra Dinn is not that; it is a game that explains nothing to you and expects you to deduct even the most basic details on your own. It rewards you for curiously taking note of little oddities and demands you inspect each scene carefully using every tool at your disposal. I often revisited past deaths that took place ages ago in the story looking for clues, and often I found them. Obra Dinn utilizes this holistic viewpoint to make me feel like I have thousands of pieces of evidence in front of me and yet through simple deduction I can narrow infinite possibilities down to the one singular truth. This is the mystery title I have yearned for; the one where I felt like the detective by the end.

i only have two emotions, megaten and touhou, and now, finally, i can experience both at once. thank you

A bullet hell game disguised as an action game. Has a steep learning curve but is oh so satisfying when you take the time to learn patterns and how each character plays. Easily my new favorite Touhou spinoff

A game that explores the strength and meaning of having hope in situations that seem completely hopeless. I want to continue, but it would be somewhat spoilery. What I can say is that this game helped define my life philosophy for the majority of 2013 and into 2014.

i want naegi's shoe to be hella

fml

This is one of my favorite games of all time. It's buggy, it's broken, it's frustrating, it's laughably dated, the cutscenes are the opposite of intense (except for the kickass intro) but it's still incredibly fun. It's simply nothing more: it's a fun game. I'm currently about 66% of the way through my first time playing it on Steam. I've played it on Gamecube at least five or more times, though. My last run was a mere few months ago.

The game is sort of short (it's like 20 or so hours on a normal run, I think?) but it's a very nice experience. It helped lay down some of the rules for future 3D Sonic games, most notably, the Homing Attack, which was underused in this title if you ask me, but future games make full use of it. In fact, this game had a lot of new stuff, some of which I wish became series staples, like Adventure Fields and upgrades.

I'm sure there's better reviews for this game right now than mine, so I'll just leave it at the personal opinions I just expressed. It's a really fun game for being so buggy and it has Chao Gardens, which is great. It's probably the #1 game I want an HD remaster of.

P.S. My Chao grew up to be emo and I would like parenting tips on how to raise my emo child

When I saw that this game was inspired by Yume Nikki, I decided to buy it because I loved Yume Nikki as an experience and hoped to get something similar. This was exactly what I hoped for. I can't really describe exactly why because to reveal the setting of an environment would almost be a spoiler in a game like this, but it definitely did a good job at making me feel the same way I did when I played Yume Nikki. If you enjoy games where surrealism is a main focus, or like games where you explore and discover unique environments, Dreaming Sarah is for you.

A note though: As with many YN inspired games, the game expects you to eventually figure it out all for yourself through experimentation and revisiting. So if you're not a patient person and just want to go through it and have the experience rather than scratch your head and figure out where to go next, a walkthrough is recommended.

It's possible to kill Satan by standing next to him while a fly runs into him. 10/10

Undertale.

There's many games that claim to have the same kind of charm as Earthbound. To my knowledge, Undertale is not one of them, but if it did, it would perfectly nail it. The very first boss sent multiple friends of mine into tears regardless of whether or not they were spared or killed. Several of them reset their save files because said boss made them feel too much to be able to handle the guilt of having killed them.

And that's just the first boss.

Undertale is the kind of game where every turn is either going to put a massive smile on your face or make you gasp in shock at what you've just done, and whether or not that happens is all up to you. The gameplay is incredibly unique - bullet hell really is the best descriptor, but imagine a bullet hell mixed with the abovementioned Earthbound charm. Not to spoil anything, but so far, I've seen segments where ships will drop bombs and explode when they hit the bottom of the small screen.

Really, all I have left to say is... the thought of playing this game fills me with determination.

You'll see what I mean.

Recommended! Sort of.

First off, let me say this was in no way a "good" game. It deserves it's mixed reception score on Steam, and hell, it took some working to get it to even open (which it did). And saves don't work anymore, so you have to beat it all in one run (which I did). Which is probably why we should stop making games that require you to use a service to save. Bad idea.

That said, let's talk real quick.

First off, this game has some of the coolest environments I have ever seen. It does Tron: Legacy better than Tron: Legacy. That's not a joke. The issue is that sometimes the parkour you use to navigate it is super unreliable and confusing. But fear not, checkpoints are VERY forgiving. Very few times does it not give you a checkpoint immediately after anything even remotely challenging to get through. It always checkpoints after battles as well and sometimes in the middle of them. So, trial and error (argh). But not so trial and error that you lost ten minutes of progress. Maybe a minute if you're unlucky. Most likely, 30 seconds.

There's vehicle segments that are actually pretty cool. The light cycles can be similarly frustrating at times but they're literally one of the best parts of the game. One of them was so good it made me forget how annoying some of the parkour was. And the light tank makes you feel strong, like, really strong. Obviously.

Characters? A little meh, actually, but the designs on them are really nice. The game also makes the entire Tron: Legacy film make more sense. including but not limited to how CLU convinced everyone Flynn was bad news, as well as how the Purge happened and more. VERY explanatory. Very nice, as a Tron fan, it made stuff so much better.

To cut to the chase,

+Makes Tron: Legacy seem better than it is
+Vehicles are great
+Very forgiving with checkpoints
+Viruses
+Environmental design is incredible
+Was able to keep my attention all 8 of the hours I had to play since saves don't work
+Game not actually terrible, but deserves mixed reviews
=No saving. At all. Your neck will hurt after and while playing.
-Game is not above-average and is in fact merely mediocre
-Parkour controls are awkward at times and your jump is just barely short of the goal sometimes
-May require workarounds to get it to play
-Doesn't support windowed mode
-Enemies have too much HP, period (and the final boss is a piece of ♥♥♥♥)

So, if you're looking for a good Tron game, I suggest Tron 2.0, which is also on Steam, and has less issues. However, if you already have that and still feel a Tron itch and are willing to play a game that's only kinda decent but still enjoyable, imho, then Tron: Evolution is your next stop. And hopefully we'll get a game like this that's worth a "positive" user rating. I enjoyed it as a fan of Tron and an even bigger fan of video games.

6.5/10 Enjoyable, but only if you're not expecting something extraordinary. (And it has Trading Cards)