Recent reviews by MollyRey

One of my all time faves. Come back to it often. Beautiful, haunting, challenging.

I was hooked the moment I played the demo. Previous comparisons to Mirror's Edge and Katana Zero are apt - the game is built around finding the right flow through each difficult segment, with quick respawns and generous checkpoints. Difficulty is punishing - one small mistake spells "omae wa mou shideiru," so make friends with frustration. But the triumph and adrenaline rush of success is worth it.

The parkour mechanics are finnicky at times - I've found myself leaping over a wall I was supposed to be running along, or overshooting a jump for no discernible reason. Could be user error - I'm far from mastering the controls - but other reviews mention similar issues so there may be opportunities for the devs to fine-tune things. This isn't a dealbreaker though - I've played and replayed games with far jankier controls.

The soundtrack is a banger, and the graphics are beautiful and arcade-y. Dharma Tower feels less like an inhabited place and more like a giant playground designed specifically for cyborg ninjas, and in my opinion that's a good thing. Ghostrunner is a game whose lore exists as scaffolding for the gameplay, not the other way around, which makes for a lean, concise and enjoyable experience.

That isn't to say the story is vapid. Far from it - it's engaging and driving, and has layers. The whole narrative is structured around Buddhist & Hindu cosmology. Dharma Tower is a spiral of difficulty and pain, ruled by Mara (illusion), and you play a ghost with an everyman name and amnesia climbing his way to the top to free himself and others. ("All learning is remembering," yeah?) The gameplay loop reinforces this theme - one definitely feels trapped in a reincarnation spiral with each failed attempt. It's a distinctly cyberpunk thing to do: use a very physical aesthetic to tell a very spiritual story. Details like this are the kind of polish that make me fall in love with a game, warts and all.

Ghostrunner is an exhilarating thrill ride that shines despite its imperfections, and invites the attentive player to contemplate some worthwhile themes while mastering gameplay. I'm definitely playing the hell out of this for a while, and for the price, I recommend you do the same.

EDIT, 11.23.20: Having put the game down for a while to enjoy some other games, I came back and finished Ghostrunner today. I stand by my original review, including the criticisms - even after a bugfix patch, the parkour controls still feel buggy. Wall-running is especially inconsistent, and while I'm not a pro player by any means, I know when I should be running on a wall. I've lost count of the deaths I dealt with just because Jack decided he'd had enough running for one day and just fell to his doom after leaping at a wall.

My biggest gripe, though is the final level. It's an unpolished, buggy nightmare. The wall run problem is even worse here, and I often went through walls or overshot them for no reason I could determine and ended up stuck in the backside of the wall. What could have been a thrilling and straightforward but challenging run to the end became an anger-inducing, stress-fueled nightmare, which unfortunately disarmed my ability to enjoy the ending.

For the price and the hours of entertainment I got, still quite worth the money. Like I said before, I've played and loved jankier games than this. But now that I've beaten the story, I'm not sure I'm motivated to go back and perfect any of the levels, since part of the challenge I'll be fighting is the imperfections of the game itself. YMMV.

Just as fun and hilarious as the last game! Fantastic art, writing that manages to be absurdist and irreverent yet unexpectedly heartwarming and thought-provoking, and gags that have me wiping tears out of my eyes and clutching my stomach. I can't recommend it enough. And...well. Makes me miss camping with friends. A bit of a balm for these lonely times.

Was great until the pedophile jokes. Getting a refund.

EDIT: Well, couldn't get my money back, so I took a few days to cool my head and, having little better to do tonight, finished the game so I could perhaps give a more even-tempered review.

It has so much going for it. The soundtrack is incredible, the world building and ambiance are top-notch. It even has cameos from Read Only Memories, one of my favorite games I've played in the past year. But despite all that, and despite the warm fuzzies the endings gave me, I can't overlook the loli fantasy and pedophilia jokes.

I have several friends who have survived assault, and a coworker of mine years ago went to jail for assaulting his underage daughter in law. Normalizing that kind of thing for a laugh just isn't ok. I can't imagine the effect that might have had on an assault survivor. While I still managed to have a good time in spite of it, I can't excuse that content, and overall I feel disappointed and sad after all is said and done. Despite all the good things VA-11 HALL-A has going for it, that one element sours the whole experience - like having your favorite mixed drink ruined by spoiled milk.

Katana Zero is the best 2D action platformer since Megaman X. I haven't been this engrossed in and inspired by a game since I was a kid - so much so that I just *had* to leave a review. Seriously, do yourself a solid and enjoy this game. Some bullet points:

> The art is superb. Whether it's a player character, NPC, or one of the hundreds of poor underpaid soliders-for-hire you'll be slaughtering, every character has a unique and recognizable silhouette and design. The backgrounds are entrancing, colorful and clever. Absolutely gorgeous - you'll be comparing it to memories of Metal Slug, Megaman X and all those well-designed classics from our youth. (If you're too young to remember those games, well, there's some rabbit holes for you to go down sometime. Have fun.)
> Controls are snappy, precise, and satisfying - simple to learn, difficult to master. Even by endgame I was finding new ways to apply the basic controls.
> ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥-a great level design. Constantly presents the player with new challenges, forcing you to adapt and learn new ways to use what you know. Occasional switch-ups in your abilities due to story progression add more than a little excitement. Hard Mode and Speedrun options and at least one alternate(ish) ending keeps the fun going.
> The story kept me on the edge of my seat - think Blade Runner meets Limitless, with some cheesy samurai flavor for good measure and many twists and turns.
> The soundtrack is just one good jam after another. Retrowave and neo-noir music with just the right amount of retro game flair.

This game is so, so much fun. Silly and irreverent, yet still manages to pull the hearstrings from time to time. The stat system is deeper than it looks, which makes replays interesting. And the art is absolutely stunning. You'll have a blast!

Fun, cheeky, and weirdly addictive. Definitely recommend.