Recent reviews by Metzengerstein

This one is not as good as the previous entries but still decent. If you enjoyed those you will probably like this. That said, where this one falls short is in two main places.

First, in the writing, there are a lot of exposition points that more or less repeat plot points the player has already heard several times. There's also a lot of points where you lose control of your character, read a few lines of dialogue, regain control for a few steps, and immediately lose control again for another few lines of dialogue. The finale section is probably the most egregious example of this.

Second, the maps used during the boss battles of the game are very linear, and as such give you few choices as to where to go when dodging the bosses, resulting in fairly boring fights or chase sequences with little real tension.

Those things covered, the game still does well in building atmosphere, and has excellent sound design and maintains the same creepy-cute art style from previous games.

Played this one just recently, so reviewing a version with many updates since launch.
Graphics: Ugly character models that look like they've been squished in a trash compactor. Hover cars and cityscape are better but get to feel pretty samey after awhile. Would be hard pressed to find your way around without the minimap.

Sound/Music: Good albeit generic music, Good ambiance. Occasionally humorous PA announcements. Main characters have decent VA work.

Story/Characters: full of pretty cringey dialogue. Preachy morality lessons from ignorant writers who get their morals from TV and the news.

Gameplay: there isn't much. drive from point A to point B. Find a spot to park, run slowly to a waypoint to press the use button, listen/read poorly written dialogue, run back to your hova. Rinse. Wash. Repeat. There's lots of random stuff you can pick up off the ground, and some random NPCs you can have awkward dialogues with that usually result in more distaste for the main character. Sidequests also exist in the form of additional fetch quests.

Overall: If you want a game with a cyberpunk aesthetic, there's a ton of better indie games on steam. I got this on sale for < $10 and still feel like I paid way too much.

Great app for playing a toooooon of retro games.

Great little app for having animated backgrounds (with some cool chill music on repeat for some of them). Can be a bit of a memory hog, so don't leave it on in the background while playing anything that takes serious processing power.

Grabbed it to play with a board-game-loving-uncle so I didn't have to clutter up a table with Settlers of Catan, and it worked as a fun alternative.

Fromsoftware has done it again. Another new IP following Sekiro that builds on what has come before, plays with it and evolves upon it. If you liked previous Souls-type games from these guys you'll like this. If you didn't like what came before you still might find something interesting here. Give it a whirl.

Pros:
* Pretty solid idea for a game that is fairly well executed
* Pretty art
* Definitely fulfills the "satisfying" kind of feeling if that's what you're looking for

Cons:
* Not a lot of content, and not a lot of diversity of different rooms / different stuff to unpack.
* Family-unfriendly story being told between the lines, something of a bait-and-switch given the cutesy art style
* Bit too strict on what qualifies as correct organization / placement for a variety of thing.
* there's quite a few items where you can't really tell what it's supposed to be. The art's generally descriptive enough by itself, but having descriptions or names might help. (E.g. couldn't tell whether the toaster was a toaster or a printer or some other device)

The continuation of a great series. It evolves on the combat from I by adding in ranged weapons, which give many of the boss fights of this game a feeling more akin to bullet hell sh'm'ups than to most other ARPGs. The story here carries on straight from the end of the first game and has some interesting twists and turns. The music tracks for this one are easily some of my favorite from the whole series. Last but not least, the art continues to be top notch.

I can't think of any negatives. I did have to restart on a lower difficulty level after getting stuck for a long time on some of the end bosses when I tried a nightmare playthrough, but the hardest difficulty being that challenging is no demerit. It did not feel unfairly challenging, either. It was an increase in cognitive load rather than a simple boost to boss health or damage output versus the normal mode -- albeit I think it did have those too.

Anyway, another game in the series I would heartily recommend to anyone who likes JRPGs or action RPGs. I would also include people who like bullet hells and sh'm'ups as well.

The beginning of a classic series. Instead of turn based combat or swinging a sword you "bump" into your enemies to attack, and can manage to attack without taking damage if you hit them at an angle instead of head on. This game has excellent music, beautiful art, and a fairly captivating story.

There are parts of this game where it is a bit difficult to figure out where you should go or what you should do next, and if you do not pay attention to dialogue you can make things a lot more painful on yourself for certain fights. And the last boss can definitely feel unfairly challenging.

Still and all, it is a game I would strongly recommend to anyone who enjoys JRPGs or action RPGs in general.

At first I was a little underwhelmed with this game, as I'm nowhere near as fond of the full 3d graphics as I was of the 2d sprites on 3d backgrounds that was used in Oath in Felghana, Ark of Napishtim, and Origins. And I wasn't sure how I'd like the combat in this game, given that you don't have the ability to jump that you had in those games.

Those things acknowledged, this was still a fun game with excellent music and a good story. The combat grew on me, and I think works ok for what it is trying to accomplish. I will say the overall difficulty of the game is much lower than the previous games I played. Nightmare did not present much of a challenge in new game +. The flash guard, flash dodge, and ability to chug potions in the midst of a fight made it a lot easier for sure.

Anyway, I would recommend this one to anyone who's played and liked the previous entries in the Ys series. The music alone is worth it, in my humble opinion.