Recent reviews by Poondaedalin

This is one of those games that I constantly think about, even after playing it many times over and getting all the achievements. There's not much to say, besides the fact that I recommend going in as blind as possible.

tl;dr: This game is a bit rough around the edges, but if you're willing to bear with it, it's one of the best indie RPGs you can find, especially for this price.

PROS:

- The music is extremely good, and every single encounter has its own unique music. There are 159 tracks in the OST, and about 2/3 of the tracks are for different enemies. Special mention has to go to Brass Boss Starter Pack (the music that plays in the trailer), Performio's Big and Tall Day, Invest, and Pencil Gang.

- The art style inside of battles is extremely fun and interesting to look at. Every attack animation is hand-drawn in a super expressive style, with the characters wobbling around as paper cutouts on popsicle sticks as they beat the suit out of each other.

- The jokes don't always land, but when they do, the game is genuinely very funny and charming. However, it can just as easily be deadly serious and creepy when it wants to be. The game has very good control over its tone, and it makes the story that much more enjoyable.

- The story is surprisingly excellent. I was going into it expecting a grim, cynical, late-stage capitalism-sort of plot, and this game does have that to a certain extent, but the driving force of the plot is genuinely compelling, and the characters motivate the story very well.

- All the character designs are awesome. Jerome is obviously great, but I loved the designs of the enemies, the Shareholders, and the CEO himself. The design of most of the enemies have a great combination of LISA-esque goofiness and OFF-esque creepiness/intrigue.

- The difficulty is moderate, and it scales extremely well over the course of the game. So long as you don't ignore side-quests, you'll get through the fights pretty easily.

- The game is very cheap for what you're getting. YIIK is 20 dollars, LISA is 25 dollars if you combine the price of the base game and the DLC, UNDERTALE is 10 dollars, and DELTARUNE will presumably be somewhere between 15 and 20 dollars when it's complete.
This game is 5 dollars and has the same amount of content or more as any one of these (except maybe DELTARUNE).

CONS:

- The battle system is a little rudimentary, a little slow, and also a little buggy. Nothing egregious, although I did have the game softlock a few times on one of the chapter bosses.

- The areas are monochromatic and can get REALLY big, so it's easy to get lost in some of the areas, especially the cold section of Beanus.

- The keybinds are a little awkward, and there's no way to rebind them in the options. It's not that bad once you figure out the binds, but be prepared to mash keys a bit to find out how to open the menu.

- The game leans pretty heavily on its predecessor, Suits: A Business RPG, for some of the events of its plot, so some of the minutia with the plot won't make a lot of sense unless you've played it or seen a play-through of it.

Overall, this game rocks. Considering the quality, and especially considering the price point, it is worth your time, and more than worth your money.

BUY SUITS ON STEAM

It’s hard to choose whether or not to recommend this game. Putting aside the employee treatment and taking the game at face value, it’s a fairly good space exploration game. I’d go so far as to say that it’s better than Starfield is at present and better than No Man’s Sky was at launch. That being said, the game still feels… hollow. I can’t quite describe why, but something about the construction of the worlds, the samey quests in the story mode, and the gutting of the universe lore compared to earlier builds of the game creates an experience with just enough sense of purpose to keep you playing, but not enough sense of purpose to motivate you beyond that.

You wander around with vague notions of what you’re supposed to do, passing from world to world as they all start to blend together. If there were better world-building, or a more compelling story, or even just a more complex planet-generating system, then this game would be far more enjoyable.

That being said, gameplay mods, especially Frackin’ Universe, can greatly improve the experience if you’re willing to give them the opportunity. But, in a similar fashion as Bethesda games, it’s up to you for whether you want to buy a middling game that’s saved by mods, or if you want to simply walk away and find a game that’s better at face value.

I’ll admit that I’ve gotten far more than $15 worth of enjoyment out of this game, but I also gave it much more slack than it might have deserved.

So tl;dr: this game is decent without mods, and quite spectacular with mods, but it’s up to you to see if that’s worth the trouble.

Everything that you’ve heard about this DLC is basically accurate, even after the changes in Repentance.

+ The Void floor is genuinely cool, and it works very well as a final floor. It could do with a bit more pizzazz to make it stand out, but it’s better than nothing, I guess.

- Greedier mode is painful, and just amounts to being “Greed Mode, but less fun”. Ultra Greedier is cool the first time, but he also amounts to being like Ultra Greed, but also less enjoyable to fight.

- Delirium is the worst boss in the game, and despite the balance changes, it can and will telefrag you. Combined with its gargantuan health pool, immunity to Chaos Card, and confusing rage mechanic, Delirium is a boss that either you will steamroll, or you will get steamrolled by it, and there’s no in-between.

- All of the new items are either bland, boring, or underpowered. Repentance buffs a lot of them, but that doesn’t excuse their sorry state in this DLC. For example, in its original state, Mom’s Razor did not block projectiles, could only inflict the Bleeding status effect to enemies, did less damage than other orbitals, and Bleeding at the time was just Poison but worse in every way (less damage, shabby visual effect, and couldn't affect bosses at all).
- The Booster Pack content is nice, but the contrast in quality of Kilburn, McMillen, and the community’s content vs. Nicalis’s content is staggering. The Forgotten is one of the best characters in the game, and it’s hilarious in comparison to Apollyon.
- Speaking of which, Apollyon is the most bland character in the game, period. Void is a mediocre item at the best of times, and it’s his only differing characteristic from Isaac. His unlocks are uninspired, and there’s no reason to actually play the character apart from unlocks.
- The modding API lacks callbacks that were left unfinished when the DLC initially shipped, and they continue to be broken today, meaning that changes to level generation is completely impossible without using a community-made API, as MC_LEVEL_GENERATOR is completely non-functional. The API in general was very under-baked at launch, and a lot of the interfaces were pretty clearly dev tools that were forked over to the community out of obligation. Good luck figuring out how to use the Animation Editor without tutorial videos and a prayer to Jesus.

I've mentioned Repentance several times in this review, and frankly, it's a godsend for this sad excuse for an expansion. Most of the major issues are at least addressed, some ideas were expanded upon, and hell, a lot of the reason why Repentance happened at all can be credited to Kilburn's work on the Booster Packs. Even Delirium would have been improved if Kilburn hadn't burned himself out (not blaming him at all for burning out btw, considering how long he was working on this DLC).

HOWEVER, that doesn't change the fact that this DLC is underbaked, overpriced, and even detrimental to the overall game.

When you compare this DLC to Repentance, or even to Afterbirth, it’s downright laughable. What started as a patch to add modding support was ballooned into a shabby, low-effort mess of an “expansion” by executives at Nicalis who wanted to make a few more bucks.

4/10: Makes the game actively less fun in many places. Only buy if you’re planning to buy The Binding of Isaac: Repentance, or if you want to learn how to mod the game.

I almost want to recommend this game, since the dialogue is VERY campy and silly, and knowing Square Enix, that aspect was definitely not intentional, which frankly makes it even funnier. However, no amount of goofy facsimiles of medieval speech patterns can save this game's terrible gameplay.

In the beginning, it's not that bad, albeit a bit weird. It has similar gameplay to Bejeweled Twist, but instead of earning special gems from matching 4 or 5 gems in a row, they're earned by filling a bar on the HUD that corresponds to your beast's color identity. There's also a Pokemon-esque type matchup chart, but it's not relevant very often. Your special gems can be matched to deal damage to the enemy, and the enemy's special gems are treated like time bombs from Twist: they count down from an arbitrary number each time you make a move, and when they expire, their effect deals damage to you.

It's a very strange system, no doubt inspired by the surging popularity of Puzzle Quest at the time of the game's development. However, every other aspect of the game seems to clash with this battle system.

- Battles can take a VERY long time, especially against enemies with high health or fast-filling bars. Add in the fact that each level only has two or three enemy types, and you'll quickly get REALLY sick of certain enemies.

- Nearly every level contains monster dens that churn out the same type of enemy, each of which must be battled along a linear path in order to fight another boss monster inside the den in order to destroy it. At least the enemies spawned from the den disappear after you kill it.

- The game has a very irritating sense of how to make battles challenging, From the most recent two bosses that I faced, the former had a mechanic that let them run from battle without placing a gem on the field to do so, forcing you to replay the same battle on a strict timer over and over until you whittled down their health. The latter instantly placed a gem on the field with a 3-turn timer, forcing me to take unavoidable damage, and this ability also has a short cooldown, so it kept churning out short timers constantly throughout the fight. I can only imagine what the later bosses are like.

- Something that I had to discover for myself (since the reviews conveniently left this detail out) is that when a certain story event triggers, the game is irreversibly changed so that making an "idle spin" (a move that doesn't actively match gems) incurs a penalty. Whenever you make an idle spin, enemy action bars are filled dramatically, and timers count down an additional time. This feels HORRIBLE to deal with, since you often have to make idle spins to avoid taking damage, and certain abilities that already felt unreliable and clunky now feel even worse, since you have to constantly match gems to avoid the penalty. In addition, there's no algorithm like in Zen Mode of normal Bejeweled that guarantees matches will appear. There's a fairly good chance (especially in longer battles) that you are forced to either take a penalty or use one of your consumable items.

- On a different note, the music is not good. It's very by-the-book fantasy music, and it almost sounds like stock music. There's also almost no variation in the battle music. One track for normal enemies, one track for "dangerous" enemies, one track for bosses, and presumably one track for the final boss. It's mind-numbing to have to listen to the same track over and over and over again.

Overall, this game is funny to watch, but horrid to play. I doubt any streamers have played this game, but that's probably the best way to experience this one, rather than spend your hard-earned Gil on this strange little satchel of gems.

I'm still not entirely sure what the right word is for this genre (I've heard people call them "bullet heavens" but I'm not sure if that's right), but this game is probably the best that I've played. It's a unique combination of mechanics from SNXRX, Vampire Survivors, and it adds its own dash of roguelike flair! The items and builds are super fun, the characters are very varied and interesting, and the music is dank.

9/10. Would absolutely recommend if you're a fan of Vampire Survivors or The Binding of Isaac.

Aqua is cinnamon roll

Note: This game is in Early Access. There's a pretty good chance that the current issues will be at least mitigated before the full release, and I know that. This review is specifically covering the current build.

I wanted to like this game so badly. I heard about its announcement ages ago, and grayfruit's playthrough of the closed demo back in late 2020 had me decently excited for the release of the game. However, at least in my opinion, the game fails to provide a fun experience on nearly all aspects.

The music is okay. I wouldn't go so far as to call it "bad", since it takes a genuinely talented musician to make bad music, but the tracks are more average than anything.

The general style and direction of the game is quite endearing, and it's probably my favorite part of the game. The ball puns are cute, I like the creativity with the item designs, and the different boards for each enemy group are really cool.

The gameplay is... Well... Pachinko. I wouldn't necessarily call it worse than pachinko, but it's definitely worse than Peggle. Part of the joy of Peggle was how easily controllable the ball is, and being able to do trickshots, slick shots, and bucket bounces feels REALLY good when you manage to pull it off. I can't quite place why, but the ball feels unruly and hard to manage in Peglin, especially when you're trying to refresh the board. Combine that with the necessity of hitting specific pegs in order to actually deal serviceable damage, and it quickly becomes VERY frustrating.

The roguelike elements feel very forced, and as much I want to like the interesting ideas put forth by the game, I can't shake the feeling that the twists and interesting mechanics of the game are derivative and downright lazy in places. The Slay the Spire formula just doesn't work if you can only draw up to two cards per turn (three with a very specific relic), and you can only play one, and enemies have ludicrous amounts of Health, and you can (usually) only attack one enemy at a time.

On the subject of enemy health and AoE damage, the balance is easily the worst part of the game. You either make a bomb build, or you're playing the game wrong. I know that sounds very pejorative and closed-minded, but I'm being serious. Sapper Sack increases your odds of winning by 500%, and every Bob-Orb increases your chances by 100%. Bombs are the only thing in this entire game that can deal enough damage to push through the stupid amount of health and numbers of the enemies. And oftentimes, even that's not enough. There is a specific miniboss in Area 3 that is a darkened room completely filled with enemies, each of which have something like 777 Health EACH. Even with a bomb build, the room is completely ridiculous. As well as that, the Wall Head has over 7000 health, and if he makes it all the way to the player, you instantly die. I don't think I've ever beaten the boss without either Sapper Sack or Electromagnet (which was nerfed to hell in a recent patch). Animated Ruins is also a ridiculous boss, but I've only ever seen that boss three times, and beaten it once. In 11 hours of gameplay, I've only ever seen that boss THREE TIMES, and the one time I killed it was before the balance patch that made it harder.

I sincerely hope some major changes are made to the game, since I really want to like it. But as it stands, I just don't have fun when I play this game.

It's a very weird, frustrating, and downright devilish game at times (Loud Bird moment), but it's got a ton of heart, and it's a genuinely fun game. Props to Terry Cavanaugh and chipzel for this great roguelike!

Pros:
- Great songs
- Intuitive and fun controls
- Lovable characters (yes, even the politician guy)
- All of the boss levels are bangers
- The night shifts are challenging but doable
- Bomb-Sniffing Pomeranian is done by coda (yes, that's enough to be a selling point for me)

Cons:
- Occasional lag spikes, particularly in the custom levels. Lag hurts pretty bad in a rhythm game.
- Some levels are very, very challenging to S-Rank, since it requires full concentration for upwards of seven straight minutes, particularly with levels like 4-1N and Beans Hopper
- A lot of the difficulty of the later levels comes from the lack of good visual cues for changing rhythms, especially in 4-4 and the promo levels. But to be fair, 4-4 was originally a custom level that was officially added to the game, and the promo levels are all bangers, so I'm not too torn up about it.
- I wish there were night shifts for the other two boss levels. 1-XN is such a sick level, and I'd love to see how they'd ramp up the difficulty in 2-XN and 3-XN.

Overall: 9/10! This is an amazing rhythm game with an amazing soundtrack. What's not to love?