Recent reviews by Pwnedbygary

Absolutely satisfying and utterly oozing atmosphere. I beat the demo and was left wanting more. Best thing Ive played in a while as far as the indie space in concerned. Will be buying it for sure when it launches. Here's hoping the full release lives up to the hype this generated for me!

This game really came put of nowhere for me. I randomly purchased it a while back, and saw it in my library over the Christmas weekend. Well, I thought I would give it a try and boy was I pleased!

The good:
- Plays a lot like a mix of Momodora/Celeste/Hollow Knight with a little bullet-hell thrown in for good measure, but not nearly as difficult as all three of those, and the bullet hell sequences aren't super frequent. It reminds me of the genre bending Nier Automata in that regard.

- Graphics are well done, very charming and overall cohesive to evoke the tone and style the dev was going for.

- Music is great, and very zen.

- Controls are spot-on and feel tight!

The bad:
- Only one thing, so far. My steam deck plays the game beautifully for the most part, but there seems to be a weird hitching/stuttering issue with the game that is a minor annoyance when outputting to an external monitor. It's by no means unplayable, but just annoying to someone sensitive to FPS fluctuations.

- Game starts in 1080p res for some reason, but can be lowered to 720p easily in the settings.

Overall:
Really enjoying the game so far! Definitely a fan, and I live metroidvanias quite a bit. Would easily recommend this to anyone looking for a hidden gem. 9/10

First real "Tales of" game that I have played. I played a bit of Vesperia Definitive Edition and liked it enough, but there's something about the dark edgy tone of this game that grabs me more. I also REALLY like Velvet as a main protagonist. She's cool, sexy, and willing to do whatever it takes to get back at her enemies. Graphics are decent for a game from the 20-teens era, and hold up nicely.

Also, despite it being "unsupported" I have played several hours now on the Steam Deck and it works really well using Proton-GE. Highly recommend giving this game a shot, its quite good so far.

Bought the game and refunded like half an hour after playing. Reason? You cant rebind the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ controller buttons... It has the gear selection set to bumpers or L1 & R1 which feels really unnatural on an XB1 controller... It forces you to either play with KBM or use automatic which is not my jam coming from sim-cade games like GT, Forza, or true sims like Assetto Corsa. Not bad for $3 or so, but not my jam.

---{ Gameplay }---
The fighting and overall game-play in this game are some of the best controls and fighting mechanics I have felt in a game to date. Platinum games have outdone themselves with this one. Everything is extremely fluid, tight, and just feels 'good' to play. My gripe comes with only one thing really, the hacking mini-game. During a certain section of this title, you're required to hack instead of using your strong/heavy attack. This is an interesting addition and one that I am not entirely unhappy with. That said, it can be a bit tedious and boring to hack smaller enemies when you want to dispatch them quickly. That said, it was always interesting to see what the devs were able to accomplish with the hacking mini-game, and I was always excited to see the layouts of the levels inside of larger/boss characters. At the end of the day, however, despite the difficulty ramping up in these instances, I would say that it grew a bit tedious even in these situations. I won't knock the game for its creativity, just that the amount of hacking chafed me a bit toward the end of route B.

---{ Audio }---
The sounds in this game are some of, if not the best sounds I have heard. The music is touching, melancholic and mysterious which really shook me to my core when playing. The songs match their locale perfectly, and really add to the tone that Yoko is trying to portray. The fact that an entire language (Emi Evans' Chaos Language) was created for singing in/lore purposes is insane to me. I love the songs in this game and jam out to them in the car at times. There are so many bops on the soundtrack, its really a treat. Some notable favorites of mine:

City of Ruin
Peaceful Sleep
Memories of Dust
A Beautiful Song
Amusement Park
and many more to be honest

---{ Audience }---
So the audience section had me thinking, would someone younger really appreciate the themes present in this game? I would say no, but the game-play and flashiness of everything definitely has universal appeal. The themes and tone of this game are dark, introspective, and a bit cerebral. I really don't feel that a child or teen would be generally able to appreciate these things to their fullest. As a 30-something, I think the notion of humanity, existence, and exploring the idea of moral relativity appeals to me much more than it would have as a younger me. I would say the audience is an adult one for sure, with younger folks being able to appreciate the game for other reasons like game-play and fun factor.

---{ PC Requirements }---
You need a relatively decent PC to play any game, but this one's requirements are nothing special by today's hardware. I ran the game flawlessly on a 5800X @ 4.8GHz and an RTX 3080, but it played spectacularly when I had a 980ti which is a 6-7 year old GPU at this point. A modern iGPU should honestly be able to at least match the experience had on consoles, so I would say its playable on most nowadays.

---{ Difficulty }---
The game can be pretty difficult at the outset. Its systems and game-play are a bit strange, and the battling seems intimidating at first. It's at the several hour mark for me that things just 'clicked' into place in my head and now everything is as intuitive as moving my own arm. That said, the game was a tad difficult at first, until this 'click' happened. From then on, only certain enemies posed a challenge for me, and I would say the minute-to-minute game-play is pretty satisfying but not difficult.

---{ Story }---
The story in this game is peerless. The way it is told and the level of polish is simply unmatched in my experience, especially with your average story playing out in a similarly mundane and droll way a la Call of Duty or some other bro-shooter. I like those types of games for the competitive game-play and the immediate gratification, but I come back to this game for the plot every time. One way in which I think this game truly excels above the rest is in how it delivers the story in arcs. Each play-through is different in meaningful ways so you see different aspects and occurrences happening from another perspective. This really helps immerse you in the lore and such because being exposed to each character's point of view helps you feel like you are living through their individual experiences. Each play-through reveals more and more about the world to the player, and the unlocking of information and lore keeps me coming back despite having to play through the same sections again. Route B was fairly notorious for this in both Nier games, having to play through most of the story again. In Automata, its significantly shorter though as much of the story is fast forwarded through to get to the new plot points. I haven't finished all of the endings yet, and I know there are C through E left of the main narrative for me, but this game really makes me want to come back and experience everything it has to offer. Its THAT good.

---{ Overall Score }---
5 lonely robots fixing their brothers out of 5

This game is quite simply a masterpiece. The music is astoundingly good, and Automata is even better. This was an impulse buy for me so I could get caught up on the NieR lore before I play Automata more.

The graphics are decent, but dated a bit, and I think Automata looks better, but keep in mind, this is a remaster of a 2010 game, not a full-on remake.

The controls are SPOT ON. The way Nier handles in battle is hugely improved over the 2010 version and its a delight to zip around the battlefield and use your Sealed Verse powers.

The replayability is definitely up for discussion, however. The story itself is split into 5 endings, the last being the most difficult to obtain, but its the one everyone should see since its new material, and its the one that connects to Automata... I would say after beating endings: A and B, simply load up the following save files and take the shortcut... The side quests and grinding required to get endings C, D and E are a tad inane and not worth the time sink. I DO think this game is worth beating once, maybe twice manually, but other than that, just go here:

https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2643195537

or read about them here:

https://rpgoverload.com/nier-replicant-full-plot-and-all-endings-explained/

Overall, this was a huge surprise to me how much I liked the game and I have spent a good chunk of time over Christmas break playing this exclusively. I think I will get endings A, B and do the save thing described above for the rest, and I will feel like I got my moneys worth. i anticipate Nier: Automata to be the real replayable one for me considering its newer game design and has more to do.

Scores:
Graphics: 75 / 100
Audio: 100 / 100
Controls: 95 / 100
Replayability: 70 / 100
====================
Overall: 85 / 100

tl;dr: Great game, just buy the damn thing.

Graphics are beautifully rendered pixel art, hand-drawn sprites.

Story is rich, characters arent one-note, but rather likable. Even the deuteragonist is likable, and well deserving of her spot alongside our hero Robin.

The gameplay is slick, and the metroidvania progression is satisfying, but not overly complex.

Limited backtracking, more story focused than others I have seen.

overall rating: 9.2 / 10

Let me preface this short review with this- I am a huge fan of these types of games, be it Strike Suit, Ace Combat, or even older ones like Omega Boost on the PS1. I feel like this game scratches that itch of mecha shooter that other games that came before it did so well. One of my favorite PS1 games is Omega Boost, developed by Polyphony Digital, of Gran Turismo fame. I've been searching high and low for something similar, and this pretty much fits the bill for me.

The game allows 6 degrees of freedom movement, so up, down, forward, back and both sides. It has a myriad of weapons at the user's disposal, but I find myself focusing mostly on the heavier hitting ones like the rail gun and the cannon types with missiles thrown in to make the enemy move away and play defense.

Gameplay: 8/10
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Where I think this game shines is the frenetic pace and the craziness that can be had in the battle sequences. There are mechs everywhere in the sky, generally, and you can shoot them all down or focus on whatever the main objective is. I normally destroy everything for the extra practice, but you don't usually need to. The controls are pretty spot on, with the shoulder buttons doing the firing, as well as the boost button to make your mech zip between objectives and evade missiles with ease. My gripe here is that the weapon selection is fine, but knowing which weapon is selected at times can be a pita because its a small white text message that tells you "Missiles", "Rail Gun", "Machine Gun", and it can be pretty hard to see. If I were to change this, I would just make the weapon youre selecting somehow easier to see.

Graphics: 8/10
============
The game runs flawlessly for me on my Ryzen 1700X and 980TI. I have everything running 'ultra' with the other settings like motion blur, and such post processing things turned off because they just smear the image imo. With my setup, I manage around 120-150fps on average, and I havent seen it drop in gameplay below 100fps which is insanely good. My setup is even able to run the game in 4k, albeit at around 30-40fps, but this still impressed me as most games I have tried run slower than this on my hardware. There's plenty to like here, and while some of the craft are a bit rough around the edges, the main character and man enemy mechs look great. The special effects and smoke trails and such look really good as well, and I cant fault the overall visuals.

Sound: 6.5/10
==========
Overall, I think this is the weak point of the game and I would definitely say that the voice acting needs some work. There are some cringe moments where the VA's pronounce words and names and I am like "The ♥♥♥♥ did you say!?" and other times I am impressed. I think the VA's are a mixed bag, with the main characters being the best and the support characters failing to deliver a compelling performance. The gun sounds and mech sounds are great, but the menu sounds are grating with this vacuum-cleaner-like noise emanating from the speakers, it drove me insane between missions.

Plot: 7.5/10
=========
The plot is in a word, "okay". Its not too hard to follow, and it can have its moments of genius, but overall it left me feeling more "eh..." than anything. It feels very AC3 which I like, but the VA performances dampen this for me. The nonsensical acting at times is grating, and one thing I didnt like was jumping back and forth between factions which did confuse me at one point where I was like "How did we get here, and why?". This was later explained and I was like "Oh, okay. Guess that makes sense" but one should be able to follow the plot at all times if written properly. Its not bad, just, it has its hiccups IMO.

Fun Factor: 9/10
=============
So far I have only played about 4 hours at the time of writing this review, but I definitely plan to finish this game and play as long as it takes to do so. I love these types of games, and I know this one has plenty of missions to keep me occupied (about 26 if I recall from reading another review). It has a very Ace Combat 3: Electrosphere vibe in the plot, and I dig it, as AC3 is my favorite of the series so far, but its more fast paced and frenetic than earlier AC games are. Its basically an AC game with Omega Boost type aesthetics.

Overall rating: 8.5/10

The game is fun, but there a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ of glitches revolving around mouse control. Entering into certain cutscenes will cause your mouse to be completely unresponsive after the cutscene and essentially breaks the game. Sometimes, it will enable if you restart from the last checkpoint, however, not always. I have found in these cases that doing a run + slide when entering the cutscene will cause the game to act normally afterwards. Not sure how this managed to get past testing, but it did...

I liked the game overall, but I sincerely hope the sequels dont have these control issues. ITs a fun time, and can be frustrating on the highest difficulty, but definitely worth the 8-10 hours it takes to beat on that difficulty. Also, I would recommend installing IDTweaker5 which allows for greater than 60FPS in this game. you can set it to toggle off if need-be but I beat the entire game at 120FPS mode without issue.

Hey, Hey, people. Pwnedbygary here.

This game has a style, a feel and overall polish that I would say just jives with me. I bought this after watching Synthetik's review by SsethTzeentach and boy was I in for a treat! I bought this and jumped in and was immediately surprised by the clean looking visuals, and the fluidity of combat. The reload and eject mechanic will definitely take some getting used to, as I have lost ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ of ammo by now doing this reflexively from other games, but I think it adds a neat, realistic touch to the overall presentation. Thus far, I have only tried one class, but I made it through about 3 or 4 floors with them and had to go to sleep. I would highly recommend this game to anyone looking for 1.) a top-down rogue-lite shooter 2.) a challenge 3.) clean, artistic visuals and 4.) explosions