Recent reviews by Grey

If you look up "ode" in a dictionary, this game should be an example. What a devoted love letter to the look, feel, and music of Castlevania over its entire history. And just when you think you've finished (get Richter to Dracula's room), you'll see that things are just beginning. What an incredible treat for long-time fans of the series. Easter egg after Easter egg, nod after nod to the fandom. Beautifully and humorously done. And for just a few dollars? These devs deserve every single penny and more. Their heart was in it, and it was fun!

If you're not big into Castlevania, this is still one of their bext expansions. The castle easily the best map in the game, much more to do than just walk around in circles. And the music is fantastic. Get it!

Grade: B “Good/Better Than Average”
If you want to play a dark fantasy tactical turn-based RPG, this is a great game. Artistically, it’s brilliant, but it can be overbearingly gloomy, and while there is much thematically Arthurian, it squanders its namesake legendarium in terms of story. It may go on a bit long, but it’s a fun game to play with many characters to choose from.

-It feels pretty Arthurian. Duels, chivalric themes, tension between Old Gods and Christianity, and unexpected but well done rulership choices that affect character relationships and some mechanics.
-Art designs and aesthetic were phenomenal, from illuminated manuscript/medieval tapestry style art to hazy otherworldliness to gorgeously detailed environments. It feels very mythical and Arthurian, but further twisted into this Avalonian dream (or rather, nightmare).
-Sound design was robust and satisfying and eerie.
-Gameplay: Fun grid-based tactical dark fantasy combat!

-Level Design: While artistically and thematically well-crafted, levels often repeated or looked the same, with uninspiring mazes or extremely drab and gloomy locales without much to do or explore besides fight baddies.
-Music: The music was awesome! ...but there were only 5 or so songs. They wore thin fast.
-Length: The game went on several hours longer than it probably should’ve.
-Story: Acceptable. Coherent but not meaningful. It all feels like a dream, and there’s too little impact to care, and the Mordred/Arthur flip isn’t interesting on its own nor justified in the story. Relationship building is purely mechanical. It’s a waste of the rich material from Arthurian legends.

-Solid animations, interface, and information delivery.
-Voice actors ranged wildly. Some minor characters were much better than major characters. Most did a decent job.
Mechanics: The class types were varied and very fun and each brought their own strengths and weaknesses that allowed you to play like you want. However, there were too few of them, too many characters, and too few you could bring with you. You’ll never get to spend much time with as many as you want, even if you replayed multiple times, which would probably be interesting at most twice.

Score: 84% Grade: B
WARNING: Those prone to seizures should avoid this game. It flashes heavily and frequently.
Recommended for those looking for a gothic horror 2D platforming hack’n’slash with an AWESOME aesthetic and a bit of difficulty. It stands on its own without its many homages to Castlevania and Ninja Gaiden games. However, those homages are often too loyal, bringing anachronisms that should stay in the 8-bit era, and a very few mechanics are unreliable.

-Art and aesthetic, and setting were all great. Great pixel art, moody environments, grotesque monsters. As a bonus, lots of colour references to the original Castlevania and other NES classics
-Animations were crisp, clear, and fitting, from puzzles to attack animations.
-Length was perfect. These games tend to overstay their welcome, especially for responsible adults, but not Odallus. You may want to use a guide though, if you get frustrated.
-Sound Design: I cannot talk this up enough! Rich, low fidelity groans, roars, and slashes that fit perfectly with the aesthetic. Its only shortcoming was that there were not enough.
-Music: tracks were too short and thus felt repetitive at times, but there are some really kickass songs in there.
-Gameplay: It succeeds where many metroidvanias fail, in that growing stronger through upgrades and backtracking to explore are BOTH quite satisfying.

-Eyebleed: Hard to say if this is an art or level design thing, but many of the levels are visually “busy” in a way that hurts the eyes (snow, underwater, etc). In conjunction with the flashing, it can be tough to look at sometimes.
-Story: This was a disappointment since the setting was so well done. The story was incomprehensible, even after finding all the runestones. That and the poor translation were accurate to NES era games, but not in a good way.

-Some mechanics were inconsistent, such as dash or slash speed, or hit boxes were weird, which is frustrating when it happens. But they usually work as you’d expect and are satisfying when they do.
-Level Design: Plenty of variety and overall greaty layout! But some suffered from tedious portions (changing winds, mine cart riding, etc.) or enemy placement that killed the buzz.

Score: 77% Grade: C+
Summary: A hilarious, beautiful homage to Metal Gear full of humour and geeky references, pulled down by annoying design in gameplay progression. It’s by no means bad and was made with love and charm, but with so many exceptional games out there, I can’t recommend it.

+ Strengths +
-Art, animation, aesthetic, and setting were all fantastic. Great pixel art, moody environments, with generous variety among the tools and stages encountered.
-All of the voice acting was top notch, even minor characters. My favourite is Mike! Fox was a bit grating, but I give it a pass as it was done with an intentional affectation.

- Weaknesses -
-Gameplay: Here’s the big stinker. The game trolls the player constantly in what’s intended to be “so close but so far” jokes, but the laughs are short-lived as you’ll find yourself spending hours backtracking and doing other tedious, trial-and-error tasks to progress. It made the game unfun such that I ended up just watching a video after getting fed up a few hours into the game.
-Length: The above is also where most of the game’s length comes from, so it wears out its welcome long before it concludes.

= Competencies =
-Story: No deep plot, but it definitely got plenty of laughs out of me.
-Sound Design, Interface, Character Design: All solid.

Score: 83% Grade: B-
Summary: A solid, aesthetically pleasing entry in the real-time tactical genre. Unlike many, however, stealth is important but not crucial, allowing for a refreshing option to go in guns blazing if you want. The influence of Mimimi games is strong, which is a good thing, though it lacks polish in enough ways that the difference in quality is noticeable. Still highly recommended for fans of the genre!

-Art, Aesthetic, Setting: Fantastic. Perfect for this type of game.
-Character Design: They look awesome! Their backstories are interesting and believable, though sparsely exhibited and not terribly complex.
-Level Design: Impressively large, complicated, and non-linear. There are many ways to approach a given situation, which matters a lot considering that each character has their own skill trees and special abilities.
-Sound Design: Crisp, clear, fitting, and just enjoyable.

-Mechanics: While generally competent and satisfying, some special abilities are vastly better than others or simply redundant. Implementation and NPC behaviour is a bit inconsistent. This is mitigated by the effective quicksave option, but it feels a bit sloppy sometimes.
-Interface: Inventory management, item comparison, and click hitboxes are all a pain.

-Length: There’s plenty of gameplay, but without a really engaging story it feels a bit long.
-Voice Acting: Most are decent/good, but a few are stellar, especially Trofim, Nikitin, and Morozov.

EDIT: Original quickshot review below.

It's good! I think some negative reviews make the mistake of comparing this to the Mimimi games (Desperado, Shadow Tactics), from which it copies many elements, especially the mission UI, but this game has a different playstyle and aesthetic. It's not as polished, but it stands well on its own. If you enjoy this genre, this game is a worthy entry, with plenty of variety and fun. It also allows a little more playstyle flexibility than most in the genre, which mostly focuses on stealth. It's very important here, but there are way more opportunities to pick a firefight if you want.

Score: 92% Grade: A- (Note: This review for single-player campaign only.)
Summary: Extremely fun to play, a surprisingly emotional story, a beautiful map. Perhaps a bit too little of it all.

-Art, Aesthetic: Gorgeous open world map and scifi dungeons. Lots of detail and care put into armour, vehicles, etc.
-Mechanics, Movement: Yes, the grappling hook is as fun as it should be and then some! Exploration is rewarding, plenty of variety and ways to approach a given situation. It's just FUN. Even dying was usually a jawdropping or laughing moment instead of a frustrating one.
-Music: Phenomenal!
-Story: This took me by surprise. Halo's always had a solid, if often meat-headed narrative. This one felt personal, deep, and often managed to do so with minimal words thanks to masterfully directed cinematics.
-Sound Design: Fantastic. Deep, rich sounds that will make the most of good speakers.
-Voice Acting: Everyone did an excellent job. Downes and Taylor acted the hell out of their parts. Other characters ranged from competent to good.
-♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ those grunts are funny.

-Length: Not enough of a good thing. The open world pads the game out a bit, but it ended up feeling a bit small, and the actual story segments, while excellent, felt like it was just getting started. I hope this isn't the beginning of a trend where multiplayer gets all the resources, which rankles when it's accessible for free.
-Mechanics, Movement: This category is here also because the good parts are excellent, but the bad parts are annoying. Vehicles struggle with terrain in a way that would be a little offputting even if this wasn't a Halo game. On foot feels a little better but still get snagged on things more than I'd like.
-Interface: The map was a bit clunky to use and didn't have a good legend.

Score: 64% Grade: D
Summary: Fans of the series may enjoy this entry if they've played out others. Otherwise, it's a competent game with too many drawbacks to merit such a significant time investment.

None.

I generally avoid comparing a game to others in its series. MH:World is better, but even standing alone, MH:Rise leaves so much to be desired.
-Length: The game fails to justify its HUGE length and respect one's time. Fights are meant to feel like epic battles, but they usually just feel tedious, and you'll have to do them multiple times to advance.
-Level Design: Cramped, boring, and with a dated look. Ostensibly this was done to emphasise wall running and the grappling bugs, yet traversal felt clunky and confining.
-Multiplayer: Nonexistant at low ranks and extremely convoluted to access, and is lobby-based instead of seamless when you do. Content was split for single and multi, but your experience and gear aren't, which feels disjointed. Regardless, it feels lonely solo.
-Information Delivery: Truly abysmal. The game is extremely complex and crucial information is often buried or omitted entirely. And yet, you're inundated with bombastic pop-ups. The most fun aspect of the game, the combat, is horribly neglected.
-Controls: Awful, unintuitive button mapping. Limited rebind options (controller or keyboard). Feels amateur or dated.
-Story: There's only a setting, no story. I didn't deduct points since the game made no effort to pretend otherwise, but it's disappointing after MH:World's fun story.

Cannot review the game positively as it has a main campaign bug that prevents its completion that has been known since 2021 and is still being reported on today with no sticky or remediation plan. (Mongols, Lumen Shan, final resupply group(s) never spawns.) I cannot positively review a game with that kind of problem. Will update review if fixed.

Posting a link of a 2 year old report:
https://forums.ageofempires.com/t/mongol-campaign-blockade-at-lumen-shan/180262/21

Score: 93.9% (A)
A lovely game that makes up for its lack of innovation with excellent design and a profound story.
WARNING: You will need to be familiar with Chronicles of the Heroic Knight and/or Record of the Lodoss War to get the most out of this.

= Weaknesses =
The game doesn't have weaknesses, except perhaps that its presentation can easily mislead one to think it's just a good, if uninspired, excuse to cameo beloved characters from Record of the Lodoss War. This isn't the case, but one can't be blamed for thinking it. Especially since early character interactions just sound like gibberish.

+ Strengths +
It takes everything good from its Symphony of the Night inspiration and condenses it. The mechanics are tight, fun, easy to learn, difficult to master. Difficulty is perfect for those weary of tedious metroidvanias. The art is gorgeous, the enemies varied and interesting, and of course there's bonus for the Lodoss fans out there. Music is nice and atmospheric, level design is clever, sounds are crisp and uniqe and satisfying. Just solid all around!

* Exceptional Qualities *
Its length is absolutely perfect for what it wants to deliver. Just enough to tell the story it wants to tell and satisfy the variety of skills it wants to introduce without overstaying its welcome.
The story! The ending was handled so beautifully. It's a timelessly important message about living that most people need to take to heart. I was moved to tears, and it'll stick with me for a long time.

SCORE: 92% (A-) An incredible game!

* Exceptional Qualities *
STORY. Due to its presentation (character design, title music, etc) I expected anime cliche. I expected to not like the game but get a solid JRPG experience out of it. I was wrong. This is now one of my favourite games and easily the best of the year.
-SLAVERY & MORALITY: The story is phenomenal. An accessible and yet thorough and mature examination of slavery and social control, and the consequences of ending it. It becomes increasingly nuanced as the story progress.
-FOUND FAMILY: The main characters come from wildly different backgrounds, some of whom wish bodily harm to one another on first meeting, for believable and non-petty reasons. But by the end of it, they're a deeply connected family, cherished friends. Writing that sort of transition and taking advantage of long form storytelling to do it -- that is NOT easy, and they knocked it out of the park. I was deeply invested in these characters and their well-being and inspired by their perseverance, courage, and willingness to change. This will be a treasured memory for me.
-ROMANCE: It was great. I don't want to spoil it. It was a great journey, from nearly enemies to deep and unquestioned confidence in one another. The story even took time to examine how much of their feelings were due to circumstance or something deeper.
-VOICE ACTING: Truly fantastic on most of the main characters. All the female VAs were exceptional, even minor characters! Other supporting characters ranged from competent to good.

+ Strengths +
-COMBAT is a blast. I didn't even want the game to end, but there's plenty of extras to enjoy if you want to keep mastering characters and beefing up your skills, including a New Game +.
-LEVEL DESIGN is gorgeous and cleverly arranged. Gold standard quality of life stuff, like progress points and always clearly warning you when you reach a point of no return.
-MUSIC punches way above its weight. While not all of it is memorable, it's frequently complex, intensely emotional, rich, polished, beautiful, and always fitting to the area and situation.

= Weaknesses =
-The ART and CHARACTER DESIGNS aren't anything to write home about, but the information delivery is truly poor. It's so common for players to spend a few dozen hours in the game and have totally missed crucial, fundamental mechanics, tooltips are vague, mystifying or absent success indicators, and on and on.
-SOUND DESIGN is good, but there were some annoying quirks, like all the battle chatter.