Recent reviews by Spookmaster

This game's narrative prowess is so potent that I crashed during the final broadcast of my first playthrough and thought it was intentional.

I was this game's biggest hater for a very long time. No matter where I went, everything was Ultrakill this, Ultrakill that. I'm a dev for an incredibly niche, one-of-a-kind TF2 community game mode (which will remain unnamed because I don't want to use this review to shill) where we make original characters/port characters from other games, give them their own unique and extensive kits, and have them fight each other to the death. I kid you not, 90% of the time when a new player would join, they'd almost immediately ask something to the effect of "hey where's V1/they should add Minos Prime/I can't wait to see V2 here" etc. I think that added to my resentment for this game, having the hundreds of hours of work I've put into the game mode disregarded by so many players just because none of it had anything to do with Ultrakill. Eventually, I labeled the game as an annoying fad to be ignored at all costs.

Eventually, though, things slowed down. People stopped asking me to port Ultrakill characters, and I stopped seeing it posted about everywhere I went. So I caved and decided to try it out, and I have to say: the game is fantastic! I wish I hadn't put it off for so long for such silly reasons. The combat is fast-paced and thrilling, the balance is fantastic, and there's loads of fascinating mechanics to be discovered by experimenting. I'm not the type of player to ever go for 100% completion in the games I play, but I've already P-ranked Act I and beaten its secret boss, and I plan to do the same for Act II, then Act III as well whenever it comes out. Ultrakill is just that good!

TL;DR: If you're like I was, and are starting to hate this game because of how over-exposed you've been to it, do yourself a favor and give it a chance. I assure you, you'll find out very quickly that there's a reason it's so popular.

I originally owned this on PS4 and was gifted the PC version a while back. It's a fantastic game, get it.

I always did want to know what it was like to be Italian.

Jokes aside, this game is fantastic. Banger soundtrack, brilliantly deranged art style, super fun gameplay. What else can I say? It's great.

A really fun platformer with lots of character (and characters who also have lots of character). Also has some of the most insanely accessible modding tools I have ever seen in my life, which makes it a 5-star product by default as far as I'm concerned.

For as short of an experience as it is, Katana Zero is one of the greatest games I have ever played. I cannot recommend it enough.

I've been playing Yu-Gi-Oh for quite some time now, granted it's been on an on/off basis. I first started way back in 2006 or so, playing The Sacred Cards on the GBA. It got me hooked for a good few years, but then I fell off. Four years ago, I was reminded of my love for this series when one of the kids I was hired to babysit convinced me to check out Duel Links, and I've been enjoying the series ever since. All of this being said, I've come to enjoy Master Duel quite a bit, so I've assembled a list of my positives and negatives below. As much as I love this game, I'll be going over my negatives first, as I feel they are more important.



THE BAD:

1. The turn timers. This is a common complaint, odds are if you've played the game even once you already know how bad it is. Please just make the turn time limit shorter. Like, way shorter. I shouldn't be able to go make myself a grilled cheese sandwich and eat it while my opponent is still on turn one. Also, please put a time limit on each card effect, and if the effect is not activated before the time runs out, that effect is automatically skipped. I understand if players want to read about the cards they can currently see, so that they can strategize accordingly, but the number of times I've waited a minimum of three minutes for my opponent to decide whether or not to activate one card effect should honestly be against the Geneva convention.

2. The meta. If you go anywhere with Yu-Gi-Oh nowadays, you're bound to find people who complain about the meta, and for good reason; being one of the oldest TCGs out there, Yu-Gi-Oh is a series which is dear to the hearts of many. It's only natural that if nostalgia brings such people back to the game, and the fun strategies they loved so much are obliterated by a million negates that stop them from playing the game, followed immediately by no less than eight hundred special summons that wipe them out on turn one, they're going to feel not only alienated, but likely quite upset. I'm not going to get into the argument of whether the current meta is healthy or not, as I understand this is a touchy subject in the community, but you cannot deny that forcing people who run this meta to play alongside those that hate it is terrible for longevity. My suggestion is simple, and actually comes from another review I read: instead of having just one ranked bracket, have three. One would be exclusively for the first era of Yu-Gi-Oh, so nothing past Fusions and Rituals. The next would be for the second era, so nothing past Synchros and XYZ. Then, lastly, the third would be unrestricted. I believe this would be an amazing way to not only keep players invested in this game, but attract new players as well, as it would make this game by far the most beginner friendly modern Yu-Gi-Oh game out there.

3. Outside of ranked play, there's not much to do. Solo play is pretty cool, and I love learning about the lore of each archetype, but it gets pretty boring pretty fast, regardless of how fascinating each story is. An online casual mode would be pretty neat.

4. I have yet to spend any real cash on this game (though I may consider it if a duel companion that fits my skeletal style is added), but holy hell, the gem prices are insane. $20+ for enough gems to get a measly 10 card packs is horrifying. Please lower these prices; $10 for 1000 gems would be much more reasonable.



THE GOOD:

1. If you're worried about having to spend eight quintillion dollars on card packs to build your deck, don't worry; this game is ridiculously F2P-friendly. You can build just about any deck without spending a dime, and you don't even need to grind much, if at all, and it's all thanks to the crafting system. All it takes is a few 10-card packs (which are very easy to obtain, even for free), and you'll usually have enough cards to dismantle for tokens to craft the cards you actually want. To my knowledge, *every* card can be crafted through this method.

2. The game is very polished, with tons of fun little details that make the game flashier and more exciting. There's map buddies, which sit on your side of the board and act as mascots, there are custom boards, which are fully-modeled, and even have their own particle effects. When you take damage, your board reflects that damage, growing more and more broken as you get closer to losing. My all-time favorites, however, are the animations that play when certain highly-important monsters are summoned. Sadly, none of the monsters in my fun little rogue decks have these animations (Konami pls add summon animations for King of the Skull Servants and Daigusto Sphreez), but they're always neat to see.

3. It's Yu-Gi-Oh. When a TCG has been alive for this long, and is still raking in millions of players, you know they're doing something right, yeah? At least, that's how I see it. In any case, with the game being as old as it is, there's an archetype for everyone, and most of them are really good at what they do. Sure, not all of them are amazing, and the vast majority of them will be wiped out by the meta (see my suggestion in item 2 of "The Bad" for a solution to this), but they're all fun to use when they work.



To conclude: I thoroughly enjoy this game. While I did spend most of this post ranting about the negatives, it's only because I see the insane level of potential this game has, and want to do my part to give Konami the feedback they need to improve this game even further. Konami hit it out of the park with regards to all of the most important aspects of this game, they just got a few strikes in the process. All of this being said, Ash Blossom won't allow me to play the game, so I cannot, in good conscience, recommend this game to anybody. 0/10.

EDIT: They added Wightbaking as a duel-mate/pet. This game is amazing.

Don't access the OLD_DATA, worst mistake of my life

Tons of fun, and gets even better with mods. 100% recommend it if you like strategy games.

me get the cool wallpaper now computer look epic swagger :)