Recent reviews by IHNN

Taiji is an extremely well put together puzzle game. It draws obvious inspiration in style and presentation from The Witness, and if you liked that game then you'll like Taiji too. Of course, leaving it at a simple comparison does a disservice to Taiji - it's a very different and distinct game, and the puzzles are very well put together to both teach their mechanics wordlessly (for the most part) and also require specific insights in a lot of places.

Some things are a bit cryptic for my liking but I was still able to figure everything out, including the extremely cool secrets. Genuinely, the secrets in this game are some of the best in any game I've played and in some really novel ways. Taiji is a must play for basically any puzzle game fan.

Minor disclaimer: I was fortunate enough to be able to beta test this game and so what I played was a couple months before release.

I arrived. I looked. I laughed.

I've played The Witness for approaching 500 hours including mods, and spent $20 on it. I played The Looker for 69 minutes for free. One of these games *clearly* has more value than the other.

That said - the best jokes in this game only land if you have the correct context from The Witness. In particular, the boat is much funnier when you know what it's referencing.

Definitely give this a try if you know much about The Witness. The Looker is one of the best parody games out there, even if some parts are questionable.

Rogue Legacy 2 has more of everything than the original Rogue Legacy.

That's usually, but not always, a good thing.

The core moment to moment gameplay is better and very satisfying, with more emphasis on platforming in some areas and more combat options and more movement options. Every class restores mana on hitting an enemy so every class can use magic throughout, and class abilities (talents) have their own variable cooldowns. Each class also has its own unique weapon with some variations possible, and a unique ability to the class. The weapon, spell and talent can be changed in specific rooms in the castle, so even a class with a weapon you don't like (Ronin with the slow Katana, for instance) can be turned into one you do (finding the Greatsword). There's a lot of incentive to switch between the 15 classes (Valkyrie is my favorite!) and do well with as many classes as you can, and most are at least good - the mix is much better than the original!
However, the overall gameplay loop is hindered by the fact that there's more of it. The castle has 6 areas compared to 4 in the original, and to see all the content Rogue Legacy 2 has to offer, you have to beat NG+6. The original had nothing new beyond NG+2, and both games only scale stats past this point. There's a slow drip of new boss and challenge unlocks, and new lore and dialogue on each of NG+1 through NG+7, compared to the original where I believe you can see everything in the first NG. Rogue Legacy 2 is designed for the grind.
And yes, that means there's more grind. The original caps out at 523 upgrades. I beat NG+7 at 760 upgrades, and this was far from maxed out. This is actually a good thing - the game is designed to let you keep scaling, your equipment keep scaling, and the enemies keep scaling, should you want to progress to NG+20, or 50, or 100. At about 2-2.5 hours for each clear of NG+5 through NG+7, I don't have the interest in dumping several hundred hours to make numbers get bigger when relatively, I still take 2-4 hits to defeat most enemies and still die in 6-11 without healing. It would just be more playing for the sake of more playing, and after 60 hours I'd had enough. It took me another 20 to complete everything meaningful.
So what meaningful content am I talking about? Well, the characters have more personality, which is great! Between runs they can give you little bits of dialogue to add depth, and there's more of them. The docks are a nice place and fairly charming... but you spend barely any time there. Instead of 25 diary entries - of which 2 are given for free - each area has 6 to 9 diary entries or memories to access, at most one per area per character. These add a lot of depth to why the events of the game are happening and this is one place where the "more" is a great benefit. If only the endgame lore came faster...
Each area has its own challenging boss. These are all well designed fights except one, and I'm willing to believe I just never hit on the right method. On each new game plus, you can choose to upgrade each boss in sequence to their prime version, making them even harder. These are also great challenges except for two. Defeating the prime versions unlocks their last memories, which are genuinely some of the best backstory in the game. About half of the information was inferrable, but in context it's always much more interesting in how everything fits together. Each boss and prime boss also unlock a scar - a specific challenge similar to the boss remixes of the original. There are 16 (really more like 15) of these, compared to 5 boss remixes in the original. These are often extremely difficult to complete and unfortunately sometimes unfair. Throwing 2 bosses in the same arena only works when you always have an out. When the only dodge is to go over, and the other boss is blocking over, you're getting hit and that's no fun. 5 of these are time challenges with a specific class to destroy targets in a specific environment, and getting gold on these requires mastering the class and the route. Ultimately, this is a good place for there to be more: though getting gold on combat scars is more of a grind than it needs to be, requiring a win with at minimum 5 different classes. And probably more like 7 or 8 in practice.

Overall, there's a lot more to like about Rogue Legacy 2. Just be prepared to have to play a lot more of it than you might want to, in order to get everything you want out of it. I don't regret my time spent with the game, but unlike the original I don't think I'll have a desire to return to it.

I'm a sucker for marble games. Marble Blast, Monkey Ball, even obscure games like Hamsterball are games I've put a lot of time into playing simply because they're fun. However, those games all have two main things going for them that The Little Ball That Could (TLBTC) does not. I'm currently about a third of the way through the game, but can't bring myself to play more than a couple levels at a time.
The first huge problem is the controls. A marble game absolutely needs tight and responsive control in order to be playable, as the only real input is rolling around, or maybe a jump. TLBTC has no jump (until you beat the game, as an option) and has very slippery control- it's hard to stop moving once you've started. This is very bad here because for some unknown reason the game is viewed isometrically with a fixed camera... at an angle of about 40 degrees. Not 45. This means that moving perfectly diagonally will misalign you with the level! Falling too far / too fast will break the marble, which is fine, except sometimes I'll fall a short distance and break and other times fall a large distance and not break. It doesn't feel consistent. Not being able to stop is horrible once the game introduces slow, moving platforms with small holes in the middle- you'd better be able to rest in that hole before the platform starts moving, or you're falling off and have to wait for it to return. As a final control issue, acceleration in the air appears to be uncapped so if you go off an edge, you can really go flying- the perspective doesn't help with trying to land anywhere, either.

To compare to other games- Monkey Ball makes it hard to stop as well, but is also designed in a way that you never really need to *and* the deceleration is enough that you can if you want. Marble Blast is much the same. Hamsterball or Marble Madness both have a full 45 degree isometric view, but again you can stop, the distance you can fall is usually clear, and steering accurately is possible in all of these games. Not so here- the entirety of TLBTC is fighting the controls.

But I said I had two problems, and the second is somehow even more glaring: this game has some of the worst level design I've ever seen. There's 120 levels, which is more than almost any other game I've mentioned (except Monkey Ball in some forms). This is a case where quality beats quantity handily- in each of these other games, each level tends to have a clear theme or objective, and a simple name that describes the core conceit. What level in TLBTC did I just nope out of before playing? Blue World 18. What does that even mean? Anyway, every TLBTC level has a time target, 3 gems scattered around, and a puzzle piece to find. You can't get the time target and the collectibles in the same run, so every level must be played at least twice. You also need to get all 3 gems in the same run, and this is where the design issues become apparent.

TLBTC level design has lots of branching paths with irreversible drops, checkpoints that can then render earlier parts of the level unreachable, and no way to scout to find out where you need to go/have gone before it's too late. This would be somewhat forgivable if the content was good, but... it's just not. Every level is just an endless mix of the same few mechanics thrown together awkwardly with no mind paid to how they fit together in the level, or even with each other. To look at a similar marble branching level, look no further than the bamboo ball levels in Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex. The general structure of getting from point A to point B while optionally collecting everything with periodic checkpoints still exists, branching paths still exist, but instead the levels take care to be memorable, be themed, and have a flow through them. You can miss things, but you can also almost always loop back to pick them up. TLBTC? If you missed something by taking the wrong path of two otherwise indistinguishable paths and hit a checkpoint, you need to restart the level. No alternatives, and this happens frequently.

TLBTC is an achievement in how not to design a game. Even if you're a fan of the marble game genre, stay away. There's a new Monkey Ball game that came out recently, go play that instead.

Oh, and I guess there's a story and some weird piano/violin music. Signs of a game taking itself more seriously than it is. This doesn't really add or subtract anything from the experience.

Spyro Reignited is a solid remaster of some of my favorite childhood games that doesn't quite rise to the heights of the originals, though I would happily play a new game with this engine. I've replayed the originals with an emphasis towards the gameplay countless times, and so I was able to 100% the trilogy in 18 hours, including all skill points.

Let's start with what's better here: the obvious graphics. Every level is beautiful and it was incredible seeing these spaces fully realized from what the PS1 could only hint at. Some of the enemy designs are a bit of a stretch but everything still feels cohesive within levels. The soundtrack also has some enhancements that were kept the core of the track intact and added complexities that, again, the PS1 just couldn't do. That said, even the good shows a trend that Reignited has in that Spyro 1 clearly got the most attention, followed by 2, and lastly 3. A few of the tracks in 3 (like Fireworks Factory) came out a bit muddled, and some of the locations came out feeling plastic and lifeless. I'm a big fan of including the convenience features from across the series in every game, like Sparx being able to point to the closest missing gem, the level maps and even the roll move being in every game.

The moment to moment gameplay is classic Spyro- run around, find gems, beat up enemies, don't hurt sheep, do some optional challenges, the usual. There's still quite a few differences here- Spyro turns slower when charging and descends faster when gliding, both of which reduce the feeling of control. However Spyro's flame attack moves and turns with you which made dealing with enemies significantly more fun. The glide is the only really control issue I had, as it makes some intended jumps nearly impossible when they would be easy in the originals. This was apparent from the first few minutes I spent with Reignited, as I struggled with the jump from the hill in the Artisan home world. Even if this isn't changed for a future Spyro 4 I don't think it would be a problem, however, as that game would be built with this steeper glide angle in mind.

Due to the review character limit, the bulk of my review can be found in this pastebin: https://pastebin.com/uCbAC3ny

...all three games are well worth your time. If you're worried about the amount of content from my 18 hour completion- don't be, I've completed the original trilogy in 10.5 hours. There's plenty here to explore and as I said at the beginning- I would happily play a Spyro 4 in this engine.

This game genuinely has some of the cleverest bits of design I've ever seen. There's one moment early on that's so carefully engineered to guide the player into doing the one thing that seems like it will progress, only to reveal several mechanics that were there all along that you just didn't know about.

The whole game is like that. And it's huge- as I write this, 7 hours in, I'm nowhere near done. And this isn't 7 hours of filler content either, the puzzle design is extremely high quality through everything I've played and I still keep learning new interactions between familiar ideas.

This is one of the easiest recommendations I've ever given. Get this game.

This review has been edited to respond to the update that addresses my biggest complaint- the original review text will be left at the bottom.

First off: The fact that the developer read the review, saw that a puzzle from elsewhere had made it into the game, fact-checked this, responded, and made an update within 48 hours is exactly the kind of thing I want to support.

I'd be borderline on recommending Circuit Dude or not, as there are things I really like about the game and some things that I find annoying. The pathing puzzles are consistently very nicely put together, and blocks tend to be used sparingly as part of those pathfinding puzzles in a way I haven't really seen done in other games. The way blocks interact with turning doors and teleports is unintuitive to me, but that's not a big deal. There's no undo button which might be a dealbreaker for some, but I've played far too much Chip's Challenge for that to really bother me. The biggest drawback, however, is that many animation times are far longer than they need to be which makes executing a known solution, or returning to a previously attempted state take longer than it needs to. Pushing a block has a short animation every single time, plugging in the last chip has a several second animation of the exit activating every single time, restarting a level takes several seconds of nothing (this is to prevent accidentally restarting, but I think having to hit the button twice in a row would do this just as well to confirm), while anything is on a conveyor belt you can't move...

But all that said, I have to go back to the quick fix and addition of a very well put together new level and 100% recommend this game. We need more developers with integrity!



Level 80 takes the first level of Pocoman without any alteration. I don't support plagarizing puzzles.

Circuit Dude also has only one music track for the entire game, and everything is needlessly slow. Pushing blocks has a second long animation for a push, restarting a level takes several seconds of waiting, and on placing the last item in a level there's a several second jingle and animation before you can move again.

The pathing puzzles are generally quite nice, so even with the above complaints I'd be torn on a recommendation or not. But again: I don't support plagarism.

Small disclaimer: I'm close friends with the developer of this game and was part of the initial mechanics discussions, as well as a lot of feedback as the game was under development.

Ephemeral Unnatural Balance (EUB) is a Touhou fangame, and has all the usual trappings of the series. The big differences are in the playable cast (the strong have become weak and the weak have become the strong) containing characters that had not appeared in any capacity in any of the Touhou games and the Discord system. The bulk of the mechanics integrate with the Discord system, which works similarly to Trance in Ten Desires. However, the player can activate it whenever they like as long as the Balance gauge is full enough, deactivate it whenever they like, are not invincible during it, deal extra damage, but also makes every enemy pattern harder while active. Resource gains are doubled and the scoring mechanics even tie into Discord. Risk vs. Reward and active gameplay tie into every facet of EUB in a really engaging way.

A ton of work went into essentially creating 8 difficulties on every pattern, as a result of this. Each of the 4 standard difficulties (Easy, Normal, Hard, and Lunatic) all get modified by Discord in different ways. The system is a lot of fun to play around with and I look forward to seeing the inevitable Discord only LNB runs.

I don't have too much else to say here- if you like Touhou, you'll like EUB. If you used to like Touhou but don't really like where the recent games have gone, you'll probably like EUB. If you've never heard of Touhou but like other games in the genre, how are you reading this review? (You'll like EUB go play it)

I loved the original Snakebird, and though I finished this game in under an hour I definitely enjoyed my time with it. Many of the levels focus on one small interaction or mechanic that Snakebird required you to learn, making it a fantastic starting point before the original, which tended to require several insights per level.

I would highly recommend playing this before Snakebird, both to see if the mechanics are for you and to prepare for the complex challenges within.

Also, it's more adorable. You can click the birds and fish!

Puyo Puyo Tetris is a reasonably fun time if you have a passing familiarity with either Puyo or Tetris. And since basically everyone has heard of Tetris, it's a fantastic introduction to the world of Puyo.

The single player modes range from an absolutely hilarious story that gets players up to speed on both games with a solid difficulty curve, to a variety of what amount to practice modes or matches against the AI. Going for 3 stars on each story mission turns out to require a decent amount of finesse in both games, though I think just about anyone can manage it.

The multiplayer is a bit of a mixed bag. The standard "Versus" mode pits two players who can be playing either Puyo or Tetris against each other. Mirror matches are the best experience here when the players are of similar skill levels, but unfortunately the matchmaking just doesn't allow for that very often. A total newcomer can be matched with some of the top players, and that can be somewhat demoralizing. It doesn't help that all modes are ranked together into one rating, and some are far easier to play than others.

Anyway, a Puyo vs. Tetris matchup isn't much fun for either side as the altered damage mechanics turn it into a bit of a grind, unless the Puyo player is significantly better (drop a 7+ chain on the Tetris and win) or the Tetris player is significantly faster (you can actually stunlock with sufficient speed, and even at slower speeds you can bury the chain). It's still fun with friends for the novelty of it, but I mostly stayed out of ranked Versus.

Swap is probably the most fun mode as it forces mirror matches, and also swaps between Puyo and Tetris. I'm a pretty well rounded player (better at Tetris, admittedly) and building a combo and a chain at the same time was always a fun time. Unfortunately, most people just play Versus. Fusion I also liked quite a lot, which is basically Puyo if Puyo was based around fast play instead of building a big chain, while also playing Tetris in the same board. It's a little weird to wrap your head around but I love it.

Big Bang is Fever or "know your SRS" simulator. Nothing too great. Party is a score attack Versus which is... maybe better? Tetris has an advantage at both low and high levels but Puyo is way stronger at mid-level play. It's weird.

Of course, none of the matchmaking issues matter if you play with friends, and none of the balance issues matter when there aren't points on the line or... it's just fun among friends. So I highly recommend this game as a sort of party game among friends. You can play with up to 4 people at a time and I picked up the game just to play with a couple friends, and I had a blast. The price of admission can seem a little steep, but if you like either game then there's actually enough here to justify it on its own, without even trying the other game.

Puyo Puyo Tetris is best experienced as a mashup of both games, though, so give it a shot!