Recent reviews by DoctorAutopsy

This is easily one of the most frustrating and obnoxious rogue-likes I've ever played. But the humor and Newgrounds flavor keep me coming back for more. It's a niche title but I'm part of the target demo. You may be too.

This is undoubtedly the best Michalski game. If you've played the trilogy beforehand, even though it's not necessary, you'll appreciate the nods to past games and similar presentation. Especially The Cat Lady.

Angie's story is completely heartbreaking and the horror elements of this game complement her struggle perfectly. Additionally, the puzzles never come off as esoteric or so dense that a guide would be needed. In fact, after my first play through, I got a bad ending but I immediately realized some of the steps I could take to prevent it.

I'd highly recommend playing through Downfall, The Cat Lady, and Lorelai first, but mostly to support the dev's hard work over the years. You'll appreciate this game even more knowing that it's the culmination of all the Michalski Brothers' hard work.

When I bought this game, I had severe depression. Now I have even worse depression. Thank you, Balatro!

This is undoubtedly one of the best collections in the series. The games themselves are entertaining, leaning heavily on 3D platforming and Playstation 1/Sega Dreamcast era aesthetics. The overworld puzzles were all great too. They were simple, breezy, and got me back into the the games as soon as... well... I could get through the overarching story. I'll be blunt:

The story of this Collection is absolute garbage.

Leo and Prometheus' dialogue slows down your movement speed in the overworld and I found myself skipping through all of it just to get to the next game or puzzle more quickly. I'm grateful for the skip dialogue button but I feel like the whole Collection would be better off without the Leo and P snarkily trading quips after every game. These two characters completely ruin every bit of horror and tension with their on-the-nose and tongue-in-cheek quasi-satanic banter. What bothers me most is that they get away with it because it's "their little game".

Get this Collection but skip the smug hobnobbery between the games by mashing the spacebar.

An excellent atmospheric puzzle game that's not fiendishly hard or obtuse. The Room has a really unique way of keeping you engaged with its puzzle box design and lens mechanic that keeps you exploring each segment for more clues, switches, and gears.

I really enjoyed this lil' game and I'll definitely be buying the sequel.

(Sidenote: I read all of the in game notes in Tommy Wiseau's voice which made it even better.)

Not A Hero is an incredibly fun little cover based shooter with challenging, but fair, missions and side goals. The game is full of violence and racially insensitive stereotypes, so if you're a bastard like me, you'll get a kick out of this game's unique energy and somewhat sadistic humor.

As far as the storyline goes, I was more invested in the politics in this game than in the current US election. I'd like to think that BunnyLord is a hyperbolic, hopped-up (pun intended), lagomorphic Trump parody with a "hands-on" approach to stopping crime.

I loved all the playable characters, if not only for their quirky personalities, but as the game progressed, I found myself neglecting some of the ones unlocked early on in favor for the later characters. Clive and Mike are just simply superior to Samantha and Cletus for most levels. If you go for all the side goals in each mission, you'll unlock better characters incredibly quickly, rendering the rest of the game a breeze. If this game gets a sequel, I'd love to see stages or challenges later on that are better suited for some of the starter characters.

All in all, I highly recoomend this game and I'm savoring my milkshake, waiting for someone to sign a sequel. #BunnyLord2016

"We've got to do the 'Jacob & Esau' run again!"
"...But we already did it. It took seven hours, but we did it. It's done."
"Yes, but we've got to kill Esau from different angles again and again...and again and again and again!"

I've been putting this review off for such a long time that the .txt file on my desktop has been gathering dust. But that's just the thing: This game, despite my utter hatred for it, still left a deep impact (or stab wound rather) on me and it has become essential for me to voice my opinion.

What is there to say that hasn't already been said about the controls? They're downright awful. Lemeza floats like a butterfly when he jumps, but carries the momentum of a cannonball when you flutter over to the next screen. Often times, this led me to smash the arrow keys in the opposite direction in a futile attempt to correct my ever so graceful jump and avoid unforseen hazards. Unfortuantely for Lemeza, he would only look the other direction as he was flung into a lava pool or spike pit.

However, strangely enough, if you jump straight up into the air, then use WASD mid jump, you become liberated from these cruel forces of momentum. Apparently, Nigoro wasn't going for realistic jump physics then, so what's the point of punishing the player for taking mandated leaps of faith?

I could go on about the controls (frequently, I would reset from my last save point than try to get out of water or lava. It was just simpler than trying to jump out of the liquids) but I need to talk about the actual origin of this game. You see, I'm with Nigoro for bringing back challening, MSX-era puzzle platformers. I love games like this. However, if you want to resuscitate the genre (and do a remake no less!), there's no need to keep primitive controls, limited save points, unforgiveably bad physics, and, possibly the worst offender, long walks back to boss fights. When I lose to a boss, I want to get right back into the fight, not drag my knuckles in shame across seven screens (Usually taking damage before the fight, and maybe failing a few platform jumps) to have another go. There is so little polish in these details that it's offensive. They are hideous warts on an already dead and bloated frog.


As long as I'm talking about boss fights, why is it that they feel so unrewarding? Most games of this genre will offer you a new weapon or health upgrade after sticking it to one of these big baddies. What's the usual boss reward in La-Mulana? An unlocked door in a far flung corridor, or a shortcut leading to somewhere you've already been. Not to mention that nearly every boss in this game is a variation on "Equip best weapons and whack them in the face". Sure, the bosses are visually appealing and they terrifyingly tower over Lemeza, but when I can scour the ruins for all the health ups (or just use the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ gun! Why on earth would you include a super powerful weapon like this? Once the player farms money, they can pay their way through boss fights!) and fling myself over and over at the guardins until they submit, it doesn't feel rewarding in the least. In fact, it proves again how little polish went into this game.

I don't want to talk about the puzzles in the La-Mulana too much; The game itself certainly doesn't address them. If you want to solve most of these esoteric and far fetched enigmas, you're probably going to wind up on the FAQ, which, in adventure games, I consider to be the equivalent of inviting a sweaty man from the internet come over and help you pee. It IS indeed an apt comparision because puzzles should flow naturally into the game, not impede you until you figure out the solution. I get that this was common in past eras of gaming, but we've since grown up. It's another blemish on the bronze aged face of gaming that can remain in antiquity.

And when you do cave to use the FAQ, the solution to the puzzle in your way will cause you to exclaim one of two things:

"That's so simple, how could I not figure that out!?"

Or

"How are you supposed to know this!?"


All in all, La-Mulana will make your blood boil and fill your swear jar. It's not a game: It's a chore. A highly complicated chore that just doesn't feel worth doing. Like giving a playground bully an emergency appendectomy only to have him kick sand in your eye afterwards.

Play the original game on an emulator; You'll conserve a lot of time and frustration by using save states. Not to mention that the original has throwback graphics and 8 bit music. These are the things from old gaming that have actually aged well. And get this: With simplistic graphics, some of the puzzles are actually easier in the original version since there's less clutter. They're still hard, but at least you'll feel like you're walking through a piece of history than play this version.

Part of me would just like to let this game go unreviewed, but, apparently, that part has been stifled and gagged by the other part writing this review. And I guess that's a proper diagram for how this game makes me feel: Split down the middle.

Having just recently (re)played Loom, I could draw the obvious parallel there. But Loom A) didn't have an inventory system and B) only used 8 notes in a way that forced you to learn the spells along with Bobbin. Yes, it may be nitpicky for me to slam the inventory system and (mostly unused) music notes in this game, but a majority of it was unnecessary.

Finding Teddy gives the player an alphabet with which to "communicate" with the world and get real feedback from it sometimes. You've already given the player a voice and immersed them into the experience. Why cluttler it up with items and allies? If the inventory was simplified or even removed (and absolutely scrap the cat and the fly. They're cute, but only perform two or three tasks the whole game), leaving only the alphabet, the game would have been so much more intuitive. Instead of hopelessly using every item in your inventory on every seemingly interactive thing in the game (in ADDITION to typing musical messages at them, or maybe using the cat or maybe using the fly), the player would have nothing but their words. It's a welcome limitation.

Actually, let's expand on that: The whole experience feels like a game that could be strictly text interactions, but has inventory items and allies shoe horned in. Instead of giving the text-based genre new life, it just causes a loss in momentum when you have to open your inventory on every screen. It causes the game to fall flat by having too many options.

Don't get me wrong, I did enjoy this game. But I feel like text based games and point and click adventures are most rewarding when you hit on those "Ah Ha!" moments, of which this game has very few *because* of its varied mechanics. I do ultimately recommend it, however simply because of the graphics and ambient music.

It's too bad that it's an insult to your visual and music talents when the core mechanics are convoluted and sometimes frustrating. No spoilers, but I wanted the whole game to be just like the ending. Hell, the ending itself could have gone on a lot longer. Adventure games are all about using your key mechanics to keep the player forgetting that they're actually playing a game. And it felt like the ending put me in that immersive stranglehold only to let me go after a short time.

Final word: Never leave your player wanting to be strangled more. Let's hope the sequel brings out more of the positive aspects of this game and reduces the detritus.

More of a test in psychological mettle than a fun pastime, Hell Yeah! is just one of those games that I vastly dislike, but just need to finish; Not for a sense of accomplishment, but just so I can say that I have the will power and pain threshold to survive this train wreck. The groan-worthy self-referential humor, poor 360 controls (playing with the keyboard and mouse is inherently better, so why even make using a controller an option?), nearly infuriating bosses/mini-games, a camera that is panned much too close (if the enemies are off screen, they can't be shot), constant need for backtracking, and incredibly horrific platforming are just a few chapters in Hell Yeah!'s grimoire of wretched gaming.

The worst part about it all is that I enjoy the basic concept. It's completely lost on this unfocused ludicrousness. If the art direction were more palatable and refined a bit (right now I'd describe the level appearances as borderline 5 year old, sugar rush, fever nightmare. Especially the "Cute" and "Club" levels), some of the mini-games a bit more clear and not detrimental to your health bar upon failure, and just one writer at Sega or Arkedo had a likable sense of humor, this game would be a sleeper hit.

It would have been a gem if they could have blended Metroid-vania level design with fun Warioware style mini-games to break the flow.

But no. This game bombards your brain with idiotic dialogue, collectibles that are a chore to collect, and brings you so very close to liking it before it curb stomps your hopes and enthusiams for it to be at least a mediocre game. It's almost a crime to put out something that could have just used 2 or 3 more months of development and clean ups.

Maybe if Sega/Arkedo gave a rabbit's ass about it, they'd patch it occasionally. But will they? Hell No!