Recent reviews by Squire Grooktook

Ninja Gaiden 2 is probably my favorite 3d action game ever. The combat system is the closest you'll get to a single player fighting game, where you have to aggressively balance offense and defense while staying mobile to avoid grapples, traps, and mixups during duels and brawls. It's absurdly fun and exciting to play.

Unfortunately this is the Sigma version of the game, which in some ways is best described as "neutered": enemy encounters are cut down with less enemies at once, but higher spongy hp, damaging the fast paced high lethality action that made NG2 so unique and brutal feeling. There are lots of other odd changes for the worse too, from breaking the games item and upgrade economy to bizarre aesthetic decisions (stage 2's burning village being changed from night to day, what??? to say nothing of the hasty removal of most of the gore)

Still though, the core combat is still the best in any 3d action game and if you can't play the xbox 360 original, this is still an incredibly fun game that I wholeheartedly recommend.

Do consider trying to track down the 360 game on ebay or amazon or something though.

Co-op roguelite shmup with some curated action mmo mechanics and an incredibly cute art style. Best played with 4 friends and voice chat so you can comically scream at each other while getting killed by teamwork mechanics.

This game was made by a guy who's been creating insane doujin shmups since the 90's, and I feel like this might be his magnum opus or at least a breakout hit. I've seen chatter about this game outside of shmup circles and I think that even if you're not a hardcore shmup nut this game might be able to hook you.

Akiragoya's games are super unique, there's almost no shmups that feel as chaotic and manic while being as approachable, constantly having you zip around to collect power ups and i-frames and aggressively taking enemies down at close range, all while dodging patterns that are simple but spectacular and play into the high movement and aggression focus. And that's to say nothing of how JUICY it all is with some of the best explosions and screenshake and screenfilling weapons in the market.

What this one also brings to the table compared to his other games is a ton of content that should satisfy even players who usually get bored after one playthrough of a shmup. It's practically four games in one with multiple "episodes" and a branching pathed pseudo-rpg mode that's incredibly addictive and well done.

It even has a compelling story and setting, which I can only describe as "an insane heavy metal fan tries to write a setting around h.r giger's paintings" with lore and an unfolding epic saga of humanities return to humanity gradually uncovered across all the episodes and playthroughs.

Even if you're not much of a shmupper, I highly recommend this game. It's just stupidly fun to play and this guy really knew how to make a shmup that should appeal even to normies.

Fun game but I really, really wish the dev had not played Undertale midway through development

I finally gave this one a shot after having it lying around for ages (mostly because Wayforward's new Contra looks super bland and safe aesthetically)

This game is great. I wasn't that crazy about Joymasher's first two games (Odallus and Oniken had potential but their level design and action was just kinda OK), but this one really feels like they hit their stride

Great level design, great pacing. Just the right amount of chaos while feeling very fair. A few cool gimmicks to set it apart from its inspirations. Lots of great setpieces. It just feels exciting and fun to play on a raw level.

It's a very nice game and I could see myself revisiting this every now and then when I need a shot of adrenaline, just like the best Contra games.

Was talking with friends on whether this is a horror game, a comedy game, or a horror-comedy. One of my friends said:

"It's a comedy game, until you're the clown."

For real though this game nails one of my favorite aspects of survival horror: the up/down roller coaster of anxiety ridden dungeon-crawling followed by the sweet, sweet tension relief of returning to safe haven with rewards and time to plot your next move. Uniquely Lethal Company makes that work with friends, creating so many fun, freaky, and funny moments with its unique proximity voice chat system, cool monsters, and great ambient sound design.

Highly recommended whether you like survival horror or just ♥♥♥♥♥♥' around with friends.

Also to the dev: please add a feature like TF2 sprays where I can put up sexy pin-ups of my favorite anime girls on my ships wall. Thanks.

This feels like a game made by people who genuinely understood and loved Streets of Rage, particularly the second game.

It refines SoR's basic moveset to a shine and adds an absolutely ingenious risk/reward system for special moves (allowing you to regain health sacrificed for specials by hitting enemies with normal attacks) which perfectly compliments the aggressive new combo system and scoring mechanics. It doesn't let down on beat em up fundamentals either, this games spacing, footsies, and crowd control easily hangs with the best of the genre's 90's output.

There's a lot of content too, so even casual fans of beat em ups who aren't planning on going for 1cc's or S-Ranks will find something to dig into here. There's really something for everyone and I can't recommend this game enough.

This game caught my eye because Kazushi Hagiwara is one of my favorite manga artists ever. It was also designed by Hironori Kato, who designed the very innovative and clever JP only Dark Souls TTRPG (check it out if you're a ttrpg guy).

At first glance it looks like an ordinary dungeon crawler, but the unique game design of a TTRPG designer ditches a lot of genre sacred cows and flips many mechanics on their heads. The unique approaches to survivalism, food gathering, and combat creates a very different and very smooth and fast paced dungeon crawl experience.

The character designs are cute and the general atmosphere is charming, as you'd expect given the pedigree.

I like it!

This was one of the greatest beat em ups of all time (if not THE greatest) back on the SNES, and this remake expands it to be even more of a masterpiece then it already was.

The presence of blocking, grappling, and incredibly well designed movesets on each character not only makes the game play more like a thoughtful fighting game than most traditional beat-em-ups, but gives you so many incredibly cool options for every situation that you can almost play it like a SSStylish proto dmc character action game. Combine that with tricky enemy AI and some amazing boss fights, and you have a real desert island masterpiece of 2d close combat action gaming that never gets old.

I love it.

I think it's pretty much the definition of a meme game.

There's not much skill to the gameplay, your hitbox is too big to do shmup-esque manuevering through the crowds so ultimately it's about learning how to min-max your build + grinding permanent bonuses between runs. It can be interesting to figure out said min-max builds and discover secrets, but all that lizard brain addiction feeding aside the core gameplay is kinda boring. I guess you could say it distills rpg gameplay in that sense but rpg's tend to have like, characters and worlds to explore and get attached to (and girls that I want to ♥♥♥♥).

It can get kinda cool to watch when you're fully powered up and turn into a shmup boss spraying explosions everywhere. I feel like with slightly more interesting and developed combat mechanics you could make a cool space battleship game out of this kind of concept.

I don't think people will be revisiting this a year or two from now.