Recent reviews by Tipzntrix

This is a solid game with pathos and catharsis, interesting battle mechanics, and a compelling storyline.

It is, however, hard to get started, not good at teaching the player how to play, full of bugs, and full of text exposition (which is probably a budget constraint to be honest). However, if you have played older games, which, due to hardware limitation, also relied on text to set the atmosphere and mood of the game, or if you read a lot, you can let your imagination help bring the words to life in your playthrough.

Without trying to spoil too much, the game resonated with me as an interesting thought experiment. It was a sort of "What if?" for Y2K? What if all the paranoia that happened was for good reason? It ties reality to this version's unreality in a way that you can relate to the characters and their experiences, but also respect that the story is its own world and not exactly our own.

Addressing the criticisms, some of them are (or were) valid:

The battles were quite slow, but the fast forward feature added to the game really helps in that category. In addition, this game doesn't overload you with random encounters, so it's not like you are drowning in mundane battle. As well, I am one of the players who appreciate the minigames that are put on most attacks and actions, keeps my focus on the battles instead of letting them just run through mashing A on preselected abilities.

The Mind Dungeon (way to level up) is still unnecessarily slow. This is one of the criticisms I felt more and more justified as I played through the game. There are unnecessary pauses, button presses, and movement all around.

The player is already expected to be quite familiar with RPGs before starting this game. Having played a lot of RPG Maker games in the past, I had some experience finding out which button does what, but there's no way to change your control setup in the game (other than between keyboard and controller), and you have to putz around to figure out what button does what even at the start. Information is given to you on signs usually past the time you need it, so the whole tutorial aspect isn't that solid.

There are some control no-nos that the devs seem to have crossed as well. There's a strange restriction where you cannot move with the analog stick / arrow keys and press a button at the same time. This happens on some dialogue screens where you need to enter responses (like at the beginning of the game) and on the overworld, as well as in some key minigames in battle. This is quite annoying. When you get used to the limitation, you can play around it, as though it was some kind of purposeful restriction (like a difficulty modifier), but I am not convinced it was any kind of feature.

Then there's the bugs. I've had switched disappear that came back when I reloaded a save. I've had the camera choose a view that completely obscures my character, or even choose a view leaves my character completely off screen. I've had cutscenes play out of order (at least I assume this wasn't a stylistic choice), I've had the ! interaction stick on my character's head even when he's changed screens and isn't near the object at all. Fortunately I have not experienced a single crash that other reviews have, but I believe them because there are so many bugs that should have been ironed out.

As for the plagiarism, I don't see it so much in this game as parody. I think it's hard to argue for the devs when it came to Two Brothers as that was so clear cut, but pulling a Wikipedia article or two for flavor is similar to how Silent Hill used Kindergarten Cop posters as decoration. It's an interesting tidbit to help fill the environment of the game and not exactly trying to take any market share from the original material.

However, despite all the difficulties playing the game, when you get into the flow and experience the game, there truly is a compelling story to tell. There have been some quality of life patches that made the difficulties a lot more tolerable. There's an aesthetic that I absolutely adore and game play that stands on its own. It really is a game that has its own zeitgeist, and while that zeitgeist really isn't that accurate to 1999 in our world, it's an interesting one nonetheless.

This game has had a lot of hate for it, and in the beginning it was well justified. It released very barebones, with glaring balance issues and even the core gameplay was... missing something. But just as the first versions of the other Street Fighters were improved on, so was Street Fighter V. With more options for each character to cover their bad matchups, the fixing of the terribly high input lag that it was released with, and the most recent proof that even less used character like Laura and Poison can win the Capcom Cup, Street Fighter V has had a redemption arc and now is the time to get in on the Champion Edition.

Power to the EARTH

Aww hell yeah. Game is great, port is fairly solid, but hoping for Full Body soon :)

This game is quite interesting. If you look at many similar games, you might expect a very combat-heavy game. However, this one is more of a story told over time. There is combat and there are bosses, but they are actually a much smaller portion of the game than the puzzles, narration, and exploration. There is a smorgasbord of Norse mythology in bite-sized audio clips to be had, as well as a gripping tale of a girl going on a spirit quest, but it's not the Dark Souls of... uh... Dark Souls? There's also an amazing use of audio in this game to really acclimate and immerse the player, so I do recommend headphones.

The spiciest of dodgeball, this game is hard to explain on its own.

Part Pong, part dodgeball, part fighting game, all style AND substance, Lethal League Blaze is the sequel to a game that itself was the iterative development of a flash game that was floating around on a webpage once upon a time.

Take on your opponent with your baseball bat, ping pong paddle, roller skates, or gator jaws by hitting the ball back and forth, moving into the best position possible, until someone gets hit. There are all kinds of ways to get around and all kind of ways to hit the ball: bunting to juggle the ball, hitting the ball back, grabbing it to induce a slight delay and throwing the ball... the mixups feel just like a fighting game and you can feel and see yourself improve.

None of my friends have played this game recently??? Where did I go wrong?

Rocket League is a solid, easy to learn but hard to master game that takes the basic concept of soccer and puts it into one of those wacky physics-based game worlds where monster trucks can fly and flip at the click of a button. You're scoring goals and saving balls, but the difficulty of driving the ball where you want it to go makes the game that much more fun and challenging.

The game. Great play, all skillshots, and amazing competition. It takes some time to get into, just like any sport out there, but the satisfaction of great team coordination and seeing a play come together is amazing. Amazing potential, an arena battle with all sorts of archetypes, where each character takes long enough to learn that it's like switching characters in a Fighting game as opposed to a MOBA, which is it not. There are so many things to learn and so much room for skill growth.

There's no levelling between rounds, though unfortunately they introduced a silly grinding system to get traits, levels, gems, and medallions outside of the game. The art is very unique and the community quite warm. Join me. I'm warm too; I'll help.