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Recent reviews by Purple Sponge

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4 people found this review helpful
20.8 hrs on record (19.6 hrs at review time)
While 'To a T' feels like a more conventional adventure game in comparison to the experimental sandboxes of Keita Takahashi's previous work, it still inspires that same playful charm that made Katamari Damacy and Noby Noby Boy so engaging.

The game is structured into bite-sized episodes following 'Teen', a student who is stuck in a perpetual 'T' pose. The game has a similar structure and gameplay to Millennium Kitchen's 'Attack of the Friday Monsters! A Tokyo Tale'. Each episode follows a day in Teen's life as the world around them becomes a little stranger as the narrative unfolds, resulting in a mini-game or QTE before the episode is capped off by the earworm that is the 'Giraffe Song'. Between episodes, Teen is free to explore the dense town, engaging with the wild cast of characters that inhabit it... Although, the only character you will want to interact with is Frogavino. Ultimately the gameplay takes a back seat to the charm, atmosphere, and writing.

The writing is surprisingly strong, especially for a game whose main theme of 'acceptance' is so blatantly spelled out through the trailers and lyrics of the game's opening number, 'PerfecT Shape'. The game subverts this by using development concepts as framing devices such as 'T-Posing' and 'Greyboxing' to weave its story and gameplay through in ways you wouldn't expect, let alone for games to even acknowledge. This isn't to say that 'To a T' does anything groundbreaking with these concepts, but it shows Uvula playing to the strengths of the medium in a way that I hope to see them expand upon in the future.

A lot of the game's charm comes from its warm art style and engaging environment. Riding the train between stops, exploring the woods on the hillside, and discovering beautiful vistas through the telescopes. Engaging with the environment is fun; however, traversing the town isn't. Traversal feels clunky due to Teen being locked to pre-designed paths combined with awkward fixed camera angles. Teen's main movement ability, the spin-jump, feels great but often lands you outside walkable areas or into invisible walls. At worst it's frustrating; at best it's just slow, though the small town size keeps this to only a mild annoyance in an otherwise enjoyable experience.

Despite the rough edges, 'To a T' delivers what is otherwise an enjoyable experience with infectious charm, strong writing, and catchy musical numbers, to the point you'll catch yourself humming 'PerfecT Shape' or the 'Giraffe Song' throughout the day.
Posted 26 July. Last edited 28 July.
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246.7 hrs on record (49.3 hrs at review time)
The Master Chief Collection at its core is not just "Halo, but finally on PC". As each title has been added to the collection over the past year, the game has received a wealth of new features and quality of life updates that go beyond the scope of a simple port.

I originally wrote a review, partly in jest, “you don’t need a review, you already know if you are interested…”

I stand by that. If you are a fan of the franchise you do not need a review. However, if you ever been interested or on the fence, you cannot go wrong with the MCC.
Posted 28 December, 2019. Last edited 26 November, 2020.
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11.0 hrs on record
Assassin's Creed II is everything a sequel should be and more. It improves on the original while pushing the core formula forward.
Posted 17 June, 2012. Last edited 4 July, 2024.
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Showing 1-3 of 3 entries