Recent reviews by Il tuo vero papà

I'm speachless reading some of the critiques from other users. Beyond the Ice Palace 2 is hands down one of the best 2D action platformers of the decade. It is NOT a metroidvania, there is some character progression, but the map design is pretty much linear. You should see it as an old school action platformer where you have a bit of backtracking every now and then, but it's not really comparable to the metroidvania genre.
Controls are good, even though some of the jumping could be improved (mostly the vertical jump while hanging on rings), but the combat is very good, better on average than Super Castlevania 4's. Bosses design is also very creative, tributes some of the old classics, but also wants you to understand the attack patterns and learn optimal distances.
I won't comment on visuals and sound design as they are stellar.

Now, moving to actual issues:
the difficulty curve is wrong. The first part of the game has a pretty much non existent difficulty, so the bosses appear to be huge spikes in challenge. This is mitigated going on in the game as it becomes harder even during the exploration, as it's supposed to be. About 2 to 3 hours in and you will be challenged in reaching the next save point, which is absolutely correct. I disagree with people complaining about save points positioning. The chunks of levels you have to go through rappresent the challenge of the game, it's not a bad design choice. You have save points right before bosses, which is a "quality of life" improvement we wouldn't have had in the '90s, and that's a huge help.
I think most of the people complaining about the difficulty level don't really have a deep experience in this genre, this game is very rewarding in my opinion, not frustrating. Ori is way more difficult, same goes for Hollow Knight, Salt and Sactuary and obviously a whole lot of roguelites like Dead Cells, Rogue Legacy or even the new Assassin's Creed Rogue. Beyond the Ice Palace 2 is pretty much on the same difficulty level of Castlevania 4, Shovel Knight, Symphony of the Night and Bloodstained, easier than the the first 3 Castlevania, which were actually action platformers with some metroidvania elements, and not real metroidvanias.

This game deserves your time and money, just make sure you understand the difficulty level.

PS: The game happens to crash too often, about 4 times in one playthrough.

This is definitely one of the best experiences of the year. Take a grim, medieval atmosphere reminiscent of The Witcher, add a little bit of Gothic and a great sense of exploration and you will have Drova. This game probably fits in the action RPG genre, but it's heavy on quests and dialogues. You will spend long times within the cities, dealing with NPCs and very well written sub quests.
The game has issues: the combat system is not great, but still functional, and I think in this particular game it would make sense to either highlight the character you need to talk to for the next quest, or at least allow us to read the characters names on top of them. Not because I want to be carried to the next step of missions, but because this is a 2D pixel art game: you need to give some better directions on the characters we need to find, if they are not recognizable by just looking at them. The player tends to spend too long wandering around cities and speaking to everyone in the hope of finding the right NPC, in my opinion.
That being said, this is easily a 9/10 for me if you like action RPG or WRPG like The Witcher.

Walking simulator with some degree of world exploration. The story is well narrated, touching, will definitely be felt by people who love animals, especially cats and dogs. The themes of abandonment, loss, loneliness and natural need for belonging are strong throughout the adventure.
It does not hit as violently as games like Dear Esther, nor has a deep development like in Firewatch. But CopyCat is also a pretty short experience, around 2 hours, and it definitely delivers in what it wants to convey.

Aside from this, real shame for physics and collision detection, they really bothered me and take away much from the player's immersion.

Destiny 2 The Final Shape is amazing, as it introduces some brilliant mechanics. The first mechanic is very brilliant: you have to hit a monster after pushing R1 and L1. And that's very brilliant.
But the developers decided to shock everyone by introducing another brilliant mechanic. The mechanic is a shield that you can use to hit monsters, and when you do they drop triangles. It's a very brilliant mechanic because shields usually shield, but here they hit. So it's very brilliant.
Another mechanic that I consider brilliant is the watches. There are some watches on the ground, and you can move the clock hands, but first you have to kill some black people. After you kill them you can move the clock, it depends on how many you kill. It's a very brilliant mechanic because it explores the implications of time on human existence while offering an alien setting that amplifies the feeling of being out of place in our reality and unable to react or communicate with the others, in a quite kafkian way that I appreciated a lot. Very brilliant mechanic.
The last mechanic is a new enemy class that is ninja, and ninjas are brilliant.
Very good Bungie, you are finally back.

Absolutely brilliant. Small videogame, very short and extremely provoking, there's a lot of food for thoughts here. If you are interested in technology, sci-fi, hardware and software, or appreciate movies like The Matrix, this game touches very interesting topics involving ethics, morality and humanity, offering an original perspective on the current IA debate and its effects on human society.
This game is very cheap, and I definitely recommend everyone interested in these themes to support the developer purchasing it. I received the game for free, but I'm definitely going to gift a few copies as it deserves more visibility.

They still have no idea how to balance the game, but at least we won against Sony's ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥.

Bullying big publishers can work:
2024 05 04 "For 3 months the game was fine, then they decide we need to link it to PSN to be able to keep playing.
Yes, they wrote it on the page. And yet they invalidated what they wrote allowing people to skip the linking procedure for more than 3 months. People asking on forums and Steam if PSN was required, and obviously other players were replying it was not mandatory. Which means more sales.
Now they change their mind and decide to make it mandatory for "security reasons". Sony, literally the most breached and hacked company of the market telling their customers they need to link their account to Steam, literally one of the safest companies, for "security reasons". And obviously if you bought the game early you cannot ask for a refund now. Very convenient Sony, brilliant move.
/slow clap"

As a long time Zelda fan, I loved this game.
Minishoot Adventures is a breath of fresh air in the adventure gaming scene, highly recommended for all fans of The Legend of Zelda. The twin stick shooter combat system works flawlessly and integrates beautifully into the game's structure, offering an experience that leans more towards action than Nintendo's title. There is a certain lack of variety in the arsenal, justified nonetheless by the longevity of the product, which clocks in at around 11 hours. But for its price, Minishoot Adventures is a must-buy if you enjoy adventure games, the Zelda franchise, or if you simply want to support originality and creativity in the gaming industry.

Great take on Vampire's Survivor's genre, this is way more bullet hellish. Also, I suck at it in a frustrating and depressing way, allowing me to diminish my already poor self-esteem and and re-evaluate the tragedy of my divorce thinking that I actually didn't deserve her in the first place. Would buy again!

This is a game you really can't miss if you love 3D platforms, and in particular collect-a-ton similar to Super Mario and Banjo Kazooie. It's simply astonishing how this game manages, with such elegance and style, to challenge and even come surpass many of the best products in this genre, easily becoming one of the best 3D platforms ever, and definitely the best on PC Windows and Xbox devices. PlayStation and Nintendo have more options, sure, but Bang-On Balls Chronicles is still up there, an extraordinary videogame, and the best 3D platform of the year.

Aside from a good art direction and the idea of the dimension shifts, the game still feels way too rough to recommend. If I might give some advices to the developer, I would personally proceed in this order:

- Pacing: you need to grab the player's attention. The first 20/30 mins are way too slow, I would cut some content or speed it up to get the player fast into the story or in the action.
- Map design: even though the visual style is nice, it becomes pointless if exploration doesn't have a reason to exist. I appreciated having treasures scattered all around, but the loot contained need to motivate players. You need to feel you achieved something, and if you have too many chests everywhere it kinda kills the purpose. Try to go for a cleaner map design, compare some messy samples (for example Kemco JRPGs) to clean ones (the recent Chained Echoes, or even the indie Ara Fell.
- Battle system: way too simplistic and bland. Players should never resort on using the same ability over and over again, it makes everything boring and not rewarding. You don't need to invent anything new if you don't want to, even the classic elemental resistances can work, if well implemented. Systems like those in Octopath Traveler or Bravely series are enough for turn based combat in a JRPG. Obviously more creativity would help, but not all games need to come out with new ideas, if the monster design is solid. Add variety, make the player understand strategies and adapt to different situations. Boss fights cannot just be about having more HP and hitting harder.
- Quality of Life: the game is in early access, so this doesn't make much sense. But keep in mind you want to have as many feedbacks as possible at the moment. Don't have your early adopters get tired because of the lack of a quest/mission menu, a minimap during exploration and stuff like that. Make it as user friendly as possible as soon as you can.

Best of luck man, I will try the game every now and then, I hope it can become a fine example of modern 2D JRPG!