Recent reviews by Lummy

Despite being in early access, Hades 2 is already shaping up to be an even better game than its predecessor. It's expanded on pretty much everything the original had in interesting ways, is already teeming with content and unique dialogue, and with a bit of Time will eventually have its minor missteps addressed.

I'll start with the best part which is the gameplay. It's both very familiar and quite different at the same time, but overall I would say Hades 2 is an improvement. Mainly because it adds a number of new moves such as the omega moves which are very powerful but also require keeping track of Magick (a new resource), and encounters feel a bit more tuned due to the lack of extra dashes - you will get punished for trying to spam-dash like in Hades 1. There's also new abilities called Hexes that you get to use once you've spent enough Magick, which are about as powerful as the Calls in Hades 1, which have their own unique upgrade paths to go through in a run. Returning from Hades 1 as well are weapon aspects, which significantly change how each weapon plays. I won't spoil any specific ones, but having unlocked them all and tried them out, the majority of them feel very nice to use.

One aspect of the gameplay I'm still a bit conflicted with however would be the new sprint mechanic. Basically you can hold the dash button down after dashing and you will continue to move at a fast speed so long as the button is kept held. This does feel nice when using it to position around the battlefield, but in its current iteration it does feel a bit slippery and hard to wield (especially on mouse and keyboard which is what I'm using to play). There are also unique boons you can get that require the use of sprinting which are cool in concept, but often feel awkward to use and leave you questioning why bother holding sprint when you could be using your normal attacks instead. I believe they said they are looking into ways to make sprint feel smoother however, so this might become a non-issue in a future patch.

The other big plus I have for this game would be its narrative elements. There's just so much dialogue in this game, even for the most random things that the devs knew players would do lol. The cast outside of the returning Olympian gods is pretty much all new and they're for the most part all quite interesting and very well-written. And much like in the first game, you can give them gifts and hang out with them to learn more about them and build your relationship which is quite satisfying. I'd say for me, the only real downsides for the narrative are the main protagonist Melinoë -- I like her a fair bit mind you, but not as much as Zagreus -- and the fact that the game like Hades 1 in early access is lacking a proper conclusion.

Overall, I'd say my only real gripes with the game are that it does need some balancing and some tweaks to certain enemies which are definitely overtuned and frustrating to fight against, and that while it has a good amount of endgame stuff put in place already, it doesn't feel that well tied into the overall progression system of the game and thus can feel a bit grindy and same-y.

But yeah, Hades 2 is simply amazing and I cannot wait to see how the game changes as it comes closer to full release.

Roboquest is a damn fun game whether you're choosing to play solo or with someone else. It manages to nail a high-octane FPS game feel with a good variety of weapons, a lot of skill expression such as through sliding, head stomping, grinding, and rocket-jumping, and just enough randomness to make each run feel different without becoming too much of a roguelite. It's basically an FPS game with some roguelike elements tacked on, so the former genre is still the key one.

If I were to describe the combat in this game, it'd be with the following words:
- Fast: This is not a weighty game at all; you will be zipping about at high speeds with running, jumping, and sliding, and this works great as the enemies will really punish you for being stationary. If I were to compare to other games, I'd say it's probably faster than the recent Doom games, but not quite as fast as something like Ultrakill. So it's still plenty fast and enjoyable to play.

- Impactful: I'm very impressed with the degree of impact the weapons have for an indie game. Most of the weapons feel amazing to use and offer a lot of visual and audio feedback to let you know how much damage you're pumping out, with the obvious standout probably being the random cartoon onomatopoeia appearing whenever you fire them.

- Varied: The game has plenty of different ways to approach it, mainly through being able to choose from six classes each with their own unique upgrades that you can find in each run; they all have well-designed kits that fulfil different niches such as one focused on summons, one focused on melee, one focused on elements, etc. There are plenty of weapons to pick up and, with the latest update, can be kept for as long as you want and still be totally viable.

If you are into your FPS games then definitely look to pick this one up. While the roguelike elements can understandably be a turn-off for some, I think this game strikes the best balance where those elements do exist but are kept to a minimum, so you can just enjoy it like any ordinary FPS game.

While the game starts off fairly strong with an appealing presentation and fairly competent combat, it sadly becomes very tedious to keep playing due to very poorly-implemented RPG elements and frustrating combat elements. I'll try to explain why the game fails at both...

The game at its core follows a pretty standard system of providing you with stats that do things like increase your HP, damage, magic capacity, etc. It's not really this that's the issue, but rather the way in which you attain extra stats and progress your character's strength. There are three main ways to buff your stats: you eat food for temporary buffs, finish harvesting your rice for permanent stats, and put on equipment with spirit boughs (basically gems that augment certain buffs to your character for having them equipped).

The first one is annoying because food buffs run out fairly quickly due to how quickly each day seems to pass, and getting the buffs you want can be impossible to do over multiple days due to lack of ingredients. The second one is annoying because it takes a rather long time to make rice and, further still, you have to make a choice at the end between gaining rice for food buffs (brown rice) and gaining rice for permanent stat buffs (white rice), so you end up in this situation where permanent progression becomes too long to obtain and has a downside for choosing to go all-in on it. And the third one is annoying because you can't simply take spirit boughs from one piece of equipment to another -- they are fused together -- and upgrading them requires you to do rather tedious things that still will only upgrade it for that one piece. You can put general spirit boughs on anything, but they pale in comparison to the ones you find on equipment.

Now, the other main issue I have with the RPG elements is that it's quite hard to gauge how strong you actually are and what areas you are able to take on. The only number the game really gives is an "exploration" level, but it's not a reliable number to follow as even being 10+ levels above the number stated I feel like the enemies are still too spongey and deal too much damage. Night missions in particular are awful for this, the tuning for them is completely off in my opinion. There doesn't seem to be much incentive to even tackle missions at night outside of specific one-time quests for each area, so I usually just don't bother.

As someone who is quite pernicity when it comes to combat systems in games, I just find the combat in this game to be quite clunky and rather frustrating. The game pits you against two main types of enemies: grounded, and flying. These are a pain to fight together due to the awkward juggling system the game has where if you fail to keep an enemy airborne then you are unable to attack them on the ground without flinging them back up with your sash. You feel forced to do aerial moves in the majority of fights, and there are very few combos you can actually pull off in the air. And the couple I ended up rotating between became extremely repetitive and kind of just killed my desire to keep playing.

Another part of the combat that is simply not good is how the game handles stagger for the player. It feels like you are constantly getting mini-staggered by ranged enemies who shouldn't even be able to stagger to begin with, and if you do take a big hit then you are knocked down for a long time for no reason, which can lead to enemies hitting you as soon as you get up off the ground. It just feels needless for this type of punishment to exist as it kills the flow of combat.

Finally for combat, the bosses are very weak. They don't really have any different attacks from regular enemies, and their difficulty is artificially inflated by simply having them respawn normal enemies alongside to apply constant stagger/chip damage to you which is very frustrating.

Overall, while I did want to enjoy this game due to the idea behind it (mix of farming and action gameplay), I grew bored of it very quickly around about the time I was waiting for my second rice yield. The story didn't pull me in at all either, so I don't have that element to latch onto instead.

Never really played Spyro before, but I ended up quite enjoying this remastered trilogy. I was kind of expecting there to be a lot of outdated and unenjoyable parts to this considering the original games' age, but to my surprise the games hold up quite well. If you're looking for a nice and chill set of games to work through then I'd definitely recommend this trilogy. It all looks gorgeous as well with a lot of charm throughout all three games.

Shantae and the Pirate's Curse is a short and sweet platformer/metroidvania game with solid controls, satisfying progression, a good variety of locations to explore, and a whimsy charm to it all.

One thing I particularly liked about this game is that while it is technically a metroidvania, the way it handles navigation throughout the levels means that it's easier to backtrack and figure out where you should be going throughout a run, which is usually one of the things that puts me off of games like this - I just get lost and can't progress for ages which kills the fun really quick. The levels themselves are also pretty well made, although some of them suffer from unfair enemy placement,

The act of controlling Shantae is also just really enjoyable. She feels very responsive and only gets better as you unlock more power-ups, with some of the later ones being very fun to use and make backtracking much easier. You can upgrade a few things on her as well such as her hair's damage and attack speed, her pistol damage, or add new moves entirely like a backdash or a kick, and you can use a nice variety of consumable powers as well for when you're struggling with certain encounters. This leads to the overall progression feeling great as while there are some RPG elements to the game, the main increase in power you get is from new powers.

The overall theme and mood of the game is also something I rather enjoyed. The story doesn't take itself too seriously, more acting like an excuse to progress things and to give out dialogue (often delivered in a humorous manner), and the music while rather hit-and-miss did really add to the overall experience whenever it did hit. It's just a cozy game to play which was definitely something I was looking for.

If I were to point out some things that I wasn't so keen on, I already mentioned one before with unfair enemy placements - enemies can fly off screen or appear pretty much right on top of you at times, which was particularly annoying when I was going for all achievements. Another thing would be navigating to later parts of a level, as you have to pretty much run all the way there if you are missing anything - there's a quick way back to the start via a consumable, but not a quick way to the end which would have been much appreciated. And finally, there are a few sections throughout the game that unfortunately end up being really tedious or annoying to go through, such as one where you have to carry an NPC with no powers and enemies that will one-shot you, which did bring the game down a little.

Overall though, I can definitely recommend this if you're looking for a nice and cozy platformer with some exploration sprinkled in that doesn't overstay its welcome. Also as a word of caution to those who do play this, if you have a monitor that goes above 60Hz then you have to use some form of external program to lock the game to 60fps manually (I used MSI Afterburner), otherwise the game will speed up due to game logic being tied to framerate.

Kind of wish Steam had a "mixed" rating for reviews. I've been playing the R&C games since the first one on PS2, and while I do have a special place in my heart for this series, I can safely say that Rift Apart is unfortunately quite middling in comparison to the older games.

I'll start with the positives. The gunplay is pretty stellar with tight controls and punchy feedback, and it feels about as good as you'd expect for a R&C game with you bouncing between multiple weapons while strafing and jumping around to avoid enemy fire. While I'd say weapon design isn't as wild as the other games, there is still a good variety of weapons to choose from with different purposes and the usual levelling up systems.

Presentation-wise, the game does look very nice even when playing on Medium, with some excellent animation work and character modelling as you'd expect from Insomniac, and loading is super fast as you'd hope for with the game focusing around using portals to bounce between different locations.

As for things I'd say I was mixed on, the game's length comes to mind. This is a rather short game - a 100% completion run for me took 14 hours, but a regular playthrough if you are simply looking for that would likely be closer to the 10-hour mark. Personally I'm not that fussed about game length, but given that this is a full-price title with honestly not much replay value, it makes it hard to say for sure that you're getting the best bang for your buck.

Another thing I wasn't so sure about was performance. My system according to system specs is able to handle 1440p at High assuming DLSS is turned on, and while the game did sit at above 60fps, there were definitely a lot of moments where this would drop noticeably during either combat or exploration, and it varied heavily from planet to planet. But, this is unfortunately with me running with most settings at Medium, as going to High (particularly for textures) made performance worse and introduced random stuttering. Overall it was definitely playable, but it left a lot to be desired as I was expecting my rig to run the game quite consistently at 60fps or above.

Finally for the mixed aspects, I'd say the story was just... OK. R&C was never really about the story to be fair, and while a lot of what is here kind of follows that (i.e., largely just an excuse for the gameplay), the game does sometimes take itself a bit too seriously for my liking. The voice acting was really good at least (shame about Qwark's VA retiring though), and while most of the humour kind of fell flat in my opinion, some of it did hit and got a chuckle out of me.

Now, onto the negative aspects of the game. The biggest complaint I have would be the enemy variety. For a game focused on shooting, there is a dire lack of different enemy types which lead to combat feeling very same-y throughout the majority of my playthrough. Most enemies are either normal guy with gun/melee weapon, flying guy with gun/laser, big robot with laser and slam attack, and then a bunch of melee-only medium/small enemies that are simply copy-pasted from other R&C games (sandsharks, amoeboids, robomutts, etc) that pose little-to-no threat. Some enemy types are simply a reskin of existing enemies as well to add insult to injury. It really does baffle me how this few enemy types made it into the game, with not even the bosses (which are often recycled as well) being able to make up for it.

The other main complaint I'd throw at the game is in its level design. The best parts of the game are when you get to fight in little arenas and just go ham on the enemies, and while these are regularly placed throughout the game, the rest is just incredibly boring. Puzzle sections are boring and laughably easy to solve, exploration feels less rewarding due to hidden things being too obvious as well as there being no real weapons/gadgets you can unlock via doing so like the original trilogy (besides the obvious RYNO), platforming and rail-grinding is super easy and bland, there's a gunner mini-game that feels really awkward to play and wasn't all that enjoyable, and just... none of the planets stood out for me. There are very few elements about them that made them memorable at all, which is a shame as the other games had super memorable planets.

So yeah, as you can see if you've read the whole review, it's a tough one to give a resounding recommendation for. I did like the game overall though, so I think what I'd say is perhaps wait on a decent sale before picking it up. By that time, the game will hopefully have also been patched a few more times to help with optimisation to make the experience more pleasant.

Currently a very unpleasant experience that I can't recommend to anyone. Biggest issue by far is hit registration, it is laughably bad and basically renders the game unplayable, and that's assuming you are actually on the correct servers as the game will randomly put you into matches on another continent.

The Immortal mechanic is also very poorly implemented. While the idea of you getting to briefly control an OP character sounds cool, the fact that every player gets to use it once and from the start of the game is just lame when the correct way should be to either a) reward good players with it throughout the game, or b) give it to teams that are behind for doing side objectives or something on the map. You can change into one at any point as well, so you'll often see a player get low only to turn into a 500+HP Dark Souls boss right in front of your eyes lmao

After having waited patiently over two decades for a new Jet Set Radio game, I'm absolutely stoked to say that Bomb Rush Cyberfunk -- the spiritual successor to the franchise -- is everything I've wanted from a continuation of the JSR formula, and proves without a shadow of a doubt that this overall gameplay, style, and theme for a game still works even in 2023.

The highlight of BRC is absolutely its gameplay. It's hard to properly describe it, but just the simple act of grinding on rails, wall-riding across billboards, doing a manual over the ground, and the other types of tricks you can pull off is addicting and has distracted me many times already from progressing the story. Most of it comes directly from JSRF as well, but the devs have clearly done good work in both improving and expanding upon that game's controls here (e.g., characters feel floaty still but not egregiously so, more options to control yourself mid-air mainly via the boosterpack, no more annoying fall damage, ability to manual to infinitely extend combos and allow for linking them across basically the entire level, etc). Because of this, I honestly think I'll still be playing this game for years to come simply to mess around and ride around the levels.

The other main aspect that BRC has nailed is the overall aesthetic for both the visuals and sound work. Everything from the cel-shading, low polygon assets and vibrant colours, to the kick-ass soundtrack, rider sounds and jingles is top-notch and makes this easily the closest we've come to replicating that same vibe from JSR. The visuals also have the added benefit of making the game feel super smooth due to being able to be run quite easily at a high framerate, which was a problem with JSRF in particular as the game being locked on the original Xbox meant that it would frequently drop frames and cause everything to slow down all too often.

In terms of the story and overall progression, I would say it's done quite well albeit leaves a bit to be desired. The quality of it I'd say is just OK, not exactly a massively in-depth tale but one that at least keeps you somewhat interested in knowing what happens next. As for its length, this is not a long game by any stretch of the imagination - it took me around 11-12 hours to beat the final boss, but a good few of those hours were spent messing around each area and taking in the atmosphere of the game. But at the same time, it didn't really need to be as it's an arcade game at heart and is meant to be enjoyed for the gameplay first-and-foremost. Of course, this will be entirely up to how you prefer your games to be structured, as I realise my own reason for playing (simply to enjoy the gameplay and not really caring too much about progression/finding secrets) is likely not a popular one these days.

The exploration and side stuff is pretty decent at least. The game feels a bit more like a collect-a-thon game than JSRF, and as such has a good number of hidden areas to explore, and a good variety of unlockables such as music, outfits, ride decals, graffiti designs, and characters, so there's a fair bit to do outside of the main story at least if that's your sort of thing. Definitely helps to make up for the aforementioned story runtime.

Now, I'd like to mention some things that I didn't quite like (although none were big enough thankfully to have that much of an impact on my enjoyment). Combat for one is pretty weak, with very few actual combat abilities, a lack of feedback to show when enemies are defeated, as well as many of the enemy types forcing you to lock yourself into a spray animation to defeat them which can get rather annoying. The other issue I have with this aspect though is that the game never really challenges the player, as the enemy types can largely be ignored or removed entirely by changing costumes in a level, the objectives are very simple and tend to have a very lenient score/time requirement, and you don't need to find any sort of healthpacks as your health will regenerate pretty quickly, which even if you do manage to die isn't a big deal as you lose little-to-no-progress. One other thing that was annoying would be the transitions for cutscenes in this game - they are very frequent (especially the police cutscenes which play out every single time) and basically can't be skipped as skipping for whatever reason takes ages, and this all adds up in the end to mess with the overall flow of the game.

But yeah, regardless of the minor flaws I mentioned, Bomb Rush Cyberfunk absolutely delivers on its promise to provide a modern-day JSR experience, and comes highly recommended for anyone who enjoyed those games. I'm hoping with the success of this game that we see more games like this, particularly from SEGA who have long since neglected the JSR franchise despite it clearly having a dedicated fanbase - and now proof that it can still work thanks to BRC. Many props to Team Reptile!

A surprisingly enjoyable albeit rather finicky top-down shooter/hack-and-slash game. Probably my second-favourite Darksiders game behind the first one, and definitely worth a go if you're into these sorts of games. I'd like to preface this review by saying that I used keyboard and mouse to play this game, and that I would probably recommend using a controller instead for most players - I'm just too stubborn to change once I've started with one control scheme.

The main pull for me was the combat. War and Strife aren't the most complex in terms of mechanics, but they offer enough differences and gain enough moves and abilities along the way that the game manages to keep itself somewhat fresh all the way till the end. I'd say both are equally enjoyable -- War is focused more on melee combat and dodging/parrying, whereas Strife is all about keeping his distance and switching between a bunch of different ammo types --and I found that switching between them made the game quite fun, even if there aren't that many reasons to actually switch between them.

The levels were also pretty well-designed. They're all quite expansive with a lot to collect in each of them, they look very nice and fit the style of Darksiders very well, and there are some interesting puzzles to solve as well which is an element I'd say is rather key to the series. I'd say that for the first playthrough of each level, it's quite satisfying to beat the set pieces and gather all of the collectibles for the first time, but I wouldn't say that replaying them is worth it at all. Definitely don't see the replay value in this game, so if you want a game to put plenty of hours in then I wouldn't recommend this one.

In terms of the story, I must admit that after a while I kind of just skimmed through it to be honest. It became clear that most of it was just an excuse to progress the game and get you killing more stuff, and considering the game is classed as a spin-off there was never much promise for this game to add much to the series' story. That said, the dialogue between War and Strife is quite good - they're a nice contrast to one another with War being rather serious while Strife is always looking for a bit of a laugh. It helps that their voice acting is excellent, and I'm glad the original VA for War reprised his role here.

If I were to mention the main shortcomings of this game, I'd say that the upgrade system isn't all that great. You gain cores by killing enemies in this game with each enemy type possessing a unique core and effect, but the way you upgrade the power of these is by killing more of said enemy, which I just couldn't be bothered doing as it's just unnecessary grinding. The effects are also about 95% not all that noticeable or useful, with most just being raw stat upgrades. The game is also filled with bugs sadly. Nothing particularly major thankfully, but the amount of minor bugs that appeared in my playthrough was rather astonishing, so if that would bother you then I would say steer clear of this game.

Overall though, it's a nice game that might even be worth a look at if you want to play something co-op with a friend. I did my playthrough on solo, but I could imagine having War and Strife fighting at the same time would be pretty hectic. Combat is fun, levels are well thought-out, and the game doesn't overstay its welcome.

Sadly, this is not looking to be a very well-thought-out game, which is a shame considering that the concept is cool and it runs pretty well. PvE is very barebones, PvP is completely unbalanced and has incredibly stupid rubberband mechanics, the exoprimals have poorly designed kits with zero synergy between their abilities, the game is a visual and audio mess which makes it very difficult to know what's even going on, and the game constantly pauses the action during missions which ruins the pace of the entire thing.