Recent reviews by Ricky Slugface

more toree but now with slightly higher fidelity

surreal and melancholic art game that's not afraid to lean into the medium and temper the morbid subject matter with playful game mechanics. it's very pretty too, the island and its angular concrete structures look fantastic, though the framerate tended to tank (not terribly, into the 50s) sometimes while trying to render a lot at once

hate to be the sole voice of dissent but i find this game a massive chore to play

i like the music, i like the visuals, i can deal with the odd controls and janky in-combat camera, but the large majority of the game involves running through linear paths peppered with enemies and it's just incredibly dull. i don't like the combat (and there's a lot of it), i don't like the loot management (and there's a lot of that too), and i don't like that every ten minutes i spend with the game feels like an hour

fun metroidvania adventure platformer which also happens to have incredible kinetic and maximalist visuals, a cool experimental electronic soundtrack, and a unique UI which completes the futuristic maximalist style aesthetic perfectly. i love the movement too, it's quite simple but lets you pull off some very satisfying tricks and high speed manoeuvres

my only problem is that getting the good ending can be a bit frustrating, because the conditions to get it aren't ever explicitly explained and getting any ending immediately erases your save, forcing you to start over. it's not a particularly long game though, so it's not that bad

i really like the dive jumping mechanic, but the movement seems at odds with the level design? the player character is slippery, stiff, and very difficult to control in the air, while the level design is mostly based around precision platforming, so instead of zooming around chaining jumps and dives and flips you spend most of the game standing still and lining up jumps hoping that your momentum doesn't carry you straight off the tiny platform you want to land on

it's like 80% normal platformer 20% rage game, but it's still fun to experience the movement

bitesize bit of straightforward 3d platforming

nothing groundbreaking but makes for a fun session or two

hesitant recommendation

i like the concept of putting an incremental/clicker type game in a wide open world which you can explore and find parts of the narrative and secrets in, but the execution is very rough

the biggest problem for me is that playing the game just isn't very fun. the star clicker minigame is fine, but RSI-inducing and very dull until you unlock some of the later stars, and the world is so huge and the movement so basic that exploration for me would often boil down to holding down shift-w for three minutes while i looked at my phone. it was hard to get invested in exploring the game world when there was so little interactivity and so much dead air walking through huge open areas to get from one point of interest to another

the music is good, the controls are a bit janky, the narrative has some interesting ideas but is let down a bit by a rough english translation. all in all a sincere, soulful effort that's hard to dislike, but often disappointingly unengaging

fun collectathon platformer with very satisfying movement, a cool PS1-inspired aesthetic, and some fiendishly well hidden secrets to encourage thorough exploration of the (mostly) open ended and non-linear levels

i'm not a fan of how sparse the settings are (i wish the game had camera sensitivity settings and a widescreen mode) but the defaults do the job so it's not too bad

weird little vibes based platformer. i wouldn't say it's much of a test of skill, but the visuals and audio design are striking and incredibly atmospheric, which helped make the game gripping even during segments that amounted to just walking right for a while

the narrative is wordless and largely up for interpretation, giving tempus bound this psychedelic, dreamlike quality that complements the unique aesthetic well. i do kinda wish there were some (more?) hints on how to open the locked door at the end, but it doesn't ruin the experience to only get one ending

though a lot easier to follow than deios ii, this is still quite an abrasive, unusual, and esoteric experience. though the game does revolve around boss battles, there's not really even a pretence of balance or conventional progression - deios I is more enjoyable as an experimental work of interactive art than a boss rush shooter

the noise at the end of the timeshare system text could be tuned down a little though, it's unbelievably loud every time