Recent reviews by Your Friend Pedro

I love Metroidvanias, but I could never get into the Wonder Boy series. It's a bit too old-school for my tastes, you know? Even the 2017 remake of The Dragon's Trap left me cold: its updated presentation is beautiful, but the underlying design is as obtuse and frustrating as it was on the Master System.

But what if Wonder Boy III were made today? Not a slavishly faithful remake, but a new game that uses those same ideas to build a modern game for modern gamers, with proper tutorials, guidance, and a cohesive interconnected world?

Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom is that game: not quite a remake and not quite a spiritual successor, it finally executes the formula in a way that I could enjoy.

Pros:
➕ Gorgeous backgrounds and animation.
➕ Huge world with tons of secrets to find.
➕ Not too short, not too long.
➕ Plenty of QoL features. I especially commend their map screen, which manages to clearly and cleanly convey its information.

Cons:
➖ Controls are a bit floaty and frustrating.
➖ Great music, but the tunes get repetitive after a while.
➖ General lack of "juice": combat and magic don't feel very satisfying.
➖ Insipid story: the anime-style opening implies an epic tale of world-saving adventure, but the game is actually about undoing the titular curse that turned the kingdom's inhabitants into anthropomorphic animals. I mean, sure, let's get that sorted out, but these are relatively low stakes. (P.S.: a Dark Lord™ from a Dark Realm™ shows up at the last minute for a save-the-world finale.)

👍 amazing soundtrack
👍 drifting mechanics with an interesting twist
👍 unexpectedly charming faux-PlayStation graphics
👍 gothic-steampunk vehicle designs: yes please
👍 made with lots of love for the source material (and I haven't even played Bloodborne!)

👎 feels very janky
👎 low visibility and poor signposting: I really struggle to navigate these racetracks
👎 button remapping doesn't persist between sessions: I have to fiddle with them every time I launch the game
👎 🔥 spicy hot take 🔥 but arena-style challenges do not belong in racing games! Nightmare Kart has several and they're a mandatory part of the campaign. I hate it.

Verdict: meh/10 game, but I'll be purchasing the OST on Bandcamp

One of the best (if not the best) game I've played in the past decade. Can't wait to see what else Tango Gameworks can come up w--

(Wait, Microsoft did what?!)

...Well, never mind.

+ Gorgeous backgrounds, fun platforming, satisfying combat
- A few glitches, boring music, terrible writing

just the right length so it doesn't overstay its welcome. Flawed, but entertaining.

I remember this being a very pleasant, relaxing experience when I tried it on PlayStation.

I couldn't stand to play this PC port for more than half an hour. Has something changed with regards to the controls? Steering the wind is so ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ hard!

Don't be fooled by the screenshots; Portal this is not. The puzzles are boring, the writing is clichéd, and the story makes no sense. Background music is nice, though.

Lovely aesthetic. Interesting puzzles. Short and sweet. The ending made me cry.

This is a fiendishly clever puzzle-platformer with fantastic writing and lots of cute ideas.

Unfortunately, it also has some of the glitchiest, jankiest platforming physics I've ever seen. Whenever I press the "jump" button, there's a 10-20% chance that the character will simply ignore the input, and things get worse once moving platforms are introduced.

For such a simple 2D game, this is inexcusable. Every single level is an unnecessarily frustrating chore, and I quit in disgust after less than 2 hours of play.

The Hex hides lots of neat little moments that integrate narrative, gameplay, and commentary on gamer culture. It’s a phenomenally ugly game, which is unfortunate, but if you can look past the graphics there's a lot to like here.

I love everything about this game's premise: the space exploration, the time loop, the xenoarcheology, the tiny planets, the wooden spaceships held together with duct tape and optimism. <3

And yet, with every play session, I found myself more hesitant to boot it up. The moment-to-moment experience just isn't fun.

Outer Wilds made me appreciate all the anti-frustration features implemented into Majora’s Mask: instant-reset (Song of Time), slowdown (Inverted Song of Time), time-skip (Song of Double Time), fast travel (Song of Soaring), a day-planner tool (Bombers’ Notebook) and a countdown clock that’s always visible in the HUD. If you want an idea of how frustrating Outer Wilds can be, imagine trying to complete Majora’s Mask's sidequests without any of those features.

Additionally, the puzzles can be quite impenetrable. There are plenty of clues scattered throughout the game's text, but it's hard to tell which bits are important and which are worldbuilding fluff. The Ship Log helps, but it's only accessible when aboard the ship, i.e., when it's least needed.

There's a fine line between "intriguing" and "obtuse", and Outer Wilds often falls on the wrong side of that line. I'd love to unravel this solar system's mysteries, but my enthusiasm was ground down by the game's many flaws and I decided to abandon my playthrough. It's a shame.

(I settled for watching this blind let's-play where the more tedious parts are edited out. It's not as fun as discovering things for myself, but it's a lot less unpleasant too.)