Recent reviews by TheDarkPhantom

Just saying, but I do have a curator page. If you like my remarks about games, you can find more of them here: https://steamproxy.net/steamstore/curator/44130985-TDP%27s-Gaming-Escapades

Listen, this is Senran Kagura. The primary reason that makes one interested in this franchise is the appreciation for its infamous levels of fanservice. And that includes you, dear reader. Yes, YOU! Don't deny it; You would not have tried to read this review if you were not even slightly interested. But as all know, that is not everything that makes a game.
Senran Kagura: Bon Appétit tries to mix the series' famous fanservice with a rhythm-based gameplay. It does the fanservice part justice and delivers good stuff in spades. But when it comes to actually offering a good gameplay, it fails miserably. Let's go through the details, shall we?

This series has always been about the fanservice (and will be) and you have to start asking questions if you play one of these games and see it doesn't feature any kind of it.
Unsurprisingly, Senran Kagura: Bon Appétit's focus ultimately leans towards the fanservice and the game does it very well. Some of the characters are dressed in revealing clothes, the whole game has you stripping other characters bit by bit as you try to win, the jiggle physics are outrageous, the perfect victory scenes are unhinged and if you are in desperate need of some fresh grass, the dressing room feature allows you to play dress up with the clothing that you have unlocked by beating the levels, see character models up close and even perform "various actions" on them.
And this fanservice has leaked into the story mode of the game as well, with very entertaining results. Depending on the character you choose for the story mode, the events and endings would either be weird, or filled to the brim with various jokes. My favorite is Asuka's storyline, where the game constantly throws girth related jokes at you. So if you really like this part of the series, you're not going to be disappointed. The gameplay however...

Here's the thing: Just like Gal★Gun: Double Peace, a game I previously reviewed, having an entertaining story mode and good fanservice is not going to single handedly carry your game. Many players will simply not go through hours of staleness for a couple minutes of hilarity, as is evident from the low completion rates of this game's achievements.
Unfortunately, the game stumbles when it comes to anything that is not fanservice, offering an experience that gets utterly repetitive and boring within an hour or two. Taking the strong fanservice depictions aside, the game does not have much left to boast with its audiovisual presentation. Whatever background activity you see from the characters in the first match is what you're going to repeatedly see until the very end. The final judgment cutscenes (featuring Hanzo) are not entertaining, despite their very silly premise. Except for a few vocal music tracks, all of the other compositions are neither catchy nor memorable and usually feel completely out of place and out of character.
And then we have the gameplay which feels either boring AF or unnecessarily hard.

Senran Kagura: Bon Appétit is just another one of your usual rhythm games with some competitiveness seasoning. You have two lines at the bottom of the screen where patterns appear on, and you have to press or hold buttons (as instructed by the game itself) when they reach a specific area. Do this well, and you will fill up a bar at the top of the screen. Your goal is to keep your fill percentage over %50 to win a match. Seems simple enough, but the game has actually managed to make it feel bad; Starting with the input system.
In most rhythm games, the number of inputs are usually restricted to a minimum, with the difficulty coming from the complexity of the patterns. You have a small number of input methods needed to perform commands, with each of them usually getting color coded for better visibility. For example, Yakuza 0's karaoke minigame only utilizes the face buttons on a controller (e.g. ABXY buttons on an Xbox controller). Senran Kagura: Bon Appétit on the other hand, doubles the number of buttons needed to perform commands and keeps the rest intact.
This game requires you to use both the face buttons and the directional buttons (WASD and directional buttons on keyboard) at the same time, while they have similar color codes. For example, both the X and left directional buttons are signified with the blue color. This has increased the chance of the player getting utterly confused at many points in the game and especially in more chaotic moments, thus missing some inputs or mistakenly inputting something else. And the situation gets even worse when we take the difficulty into account.

Unfortunately, Senran Kagura: Bon Appétit's difficulty is not well-adjusted. And this is because the game mainly decides how hard your experience should be based on the music that is playing, with energetic/vocal tracks having faster and more complex patterns. This happens regardless of the chosen difficulty setting. So for example, if you decide to play on the easy mode and then run into one of those energetic tracks, the game will not respect your choice and increases the challenge anyway. And if you play the game on hard and run into a chiller track, the difficulty decreases despite your preferences.
Because of this, you can see lots of difficulty spikes throughout the game and some of the battles are either much easier or much harder than the ones that came before them. The worst offenders are the battles against Daidoji and especially Rin, where the difficulty takes a gigantic hike regardless of the chosen setting. At this point, even the slightest mistakes leave you with almost no chance to recover and win, as missing a note takes out a rather big chunk of the top bar. If you're on easy mode, you're gonna have a bad time and any higher difficulty is going to make you cry during those battles.

And what you have read about so far is what that you're going to get for the entirety of the game as in terms of content, nothing has been changed or added to this version compared to the original PS Vita release (which this port is directly based on), except for a few graphics settings.
Aside from story mode, you only have access to arcade and freeplay modes which are the exact same thing. The only difference is that the former has no story and the latter acts as a practice mode, so both are practically worthless. The playable characters also don't change anything gameplay-wise. So you will be doing the exact same gameplay style but with different dialogues, every time you decide to do a story route.
This game could have really used some new stuff while transitioning from handheld to main platforms. For example, there could have been a local multiplayer mode to utilize the bigger displays of non-handheld platforms. But supposedly, the costs and time needed to add new things to the game were not deemed beneficial and such thing has not happened. This Ultimately leaves us with a game that you play once, and you have seen everything it has to offer.


Delivers in spades when it comes to the fanservice, but offers one of the blandest gameplay experiences marred with extremely inconsistent difficulty scaling, making it utterly repetitive and not fun.

Just saying, but I do have a curator page. If you like my remarks about games, you can find more of them here: https://steamproxy.net/steamstore/curator/44130985-TDP%27s-Gaming-Escapades

You know, certain things never go together, no matter how hard you try. You cannot mix water and oil, you cannot put herbivores and carnivores in one pen with no consequences, and you sure as hell cannot add time limits to a puzzle game that requires thinking and expect it to be fun.
PictoQuest is a game that tries to offer an innovation in the puzzle genre. But the end result is something that every negative review on its store page is right about: It doesn't work. This game turns the simple, relaxing premise of nonograms into something stressful and not fun by adding unnecessary challenges and punishments.

As advertised on the game's store page, the dev claims that PictoQuest uses light RPG elements in its game design but... it really doesn't use any RPG elements in my honest opinion. PictoQuest just has an inventory system, an in-game economy which allows you to buy and sell consumables, optional levels... and that's it. Those are stuff that you even see in other genres. If you were expecting a character progression system and/or inclusion of skills like the Puzzle Quest series, well I'm sorry, there's no such thing here. Don't expect a plot either. This is no Murder By Numbers.
And what we have is not satisfactory either. The optional levels reuse normal grids that you have solved before, and just ask you to do specific things while solving them such as not making a mistake or racing against a time limit. The consumable spells are mostly not worth it as their effects only last a very short time and also don't help much on very big grids. Then we have the HP system which, frankly, has damaged the game rather than adding to it. To explain this last point in full, we need to get into the combat system.

Truth be told, I don't think it's a good idea to add combat to a lot of puzzle games out there; especially if it's real-time combat instead of turn-based. And the way PictoQuest's combat system is designed just solidifies my opinion on this matter.
Most of the game's levels put you against up to 3 enemies or a boss. You have to choose which enemy to target utilizing the enemy display in the top right corner of the screen, then successfully clear a horizontal or vertical row of the grid to attack and deal damage. If you make a mistake, then the enemy gets to attack and can either take some of your HP away or miss their chance. Seems simple enough on the first glance, but then we have the details.
First, you have only 3 HP points when you start the game and normal enemies & bosses each deal 0.5 and 1 points of damage respectively, meaning you can only take damage for 3-6 times depending on the enemy type. This basically renders guesswork useless. You can buy potions to refill HP mid-game or get health upgrades, but the former can run out pretty fast (thus requiring more purchases) and the latter is fairly expensive. Considering the coin drop rate not being very high, these may force you to grind previous levels. Then there's the issue of time limits, as each enemy has an ATK indicator which signifies the amount of time you have left before they attack anyway regardless of your mistakes, and you have to delay them by doing your own attacks. This time limit creates major issues.

I'll be honest with you, I firmly believe time limits do not belong in this kind of puzzles. Stuff like nonograms or sudoku grids require adequate thinking and proper planning on their own. You need to take your time, relax and carefully think about your inputs. Introducing a time limit and threatening the player of losing the game because of it just unnecessarily increases the tension and also the chances of making a mistake. And the situation gets even worse in the multi-enemy encounters, because then you will have up to three different countdown timers to manage on top of solving the puzzle. And don't forget that in order to fight the enemies and delay their attacks, you have to finish an entire horizontal or vertical row to deal damage to them. Also do remember that guesswork is not worth it as it is incredibly risky.
You need to finish the nonogram puzzle in front of you as fast as possible because the enemies are going to attack you if you don't, then you need to keep an eye on the enemy display to switch between multiple enemies and delay their attacks separately and finally, you also need to refrain from doing potential mistakes while doing the former tasks. Fail to do these and you will be punished with HP reductions, eventually leading into a game over if you are not careful. And the game resets the field on a game over, so you have to do everything from the beginning and might also need to restock your inventory.
This is simply too much, especially for the newcomers to the genre who would want to start with this game; Which I think is fair to assume considering the visual style of the game being family friendly. And if we couple it with the game's rather quick pace of introducing bigger grids, it's not going to offer a pleasant exprience. Sure, there's a chance for the enemies to miss, but it doesn't happen often and you are on your own. Then we have the chest missions that do not have a time limit but take away an increasing portion of your accumulated money on each mistake, basically making the need for grinding more of a reality.

But, let's say one can ignore all of the points I yapped about until now. Will they be able to enjoy the puzzles themselves? The answer to that is a definite no. The game gets boring before you even hit the halfway mark because of frequest repeating patterns in the puzzles (mirrored placements as an example) and the stale audiovisual presentation.


Takes the simple and relaxing nature of nonograms and turns it into a tense, stressful and not fun experience by forcing you to never make mistakes and do everything under a time limit. Just skip it.

Just saying, but I do have a curator page. If you like my remarks about games, you can find more of them here: https://steamproxy.net/steamstore/curator/44130985-TDP%27s-Gaming-Escapades

You know you're in for a ride when a game has a dedicated "mom walked in" button.
Gal★Gun: Double Peace is indeed, a helluva ride. It's filled with ridiculously hilarious events and some very well-done writing that can immediately turn it into one of your favorite games in those regards. But on the other hand, the gameplay fails miserably at keeping you interested in the long run.

Gal★Gun: Double Peace is an on-rails shooter mixed with a visual novel. You go from arena to arena, use your preferred input method to aim and shoot at the "opponents" that pop up on the screen in true on-rails shooter fashion. Then you have visual novel sections in-between the shooting galleries with occasional multiple choice scenarios to tell the story.
What makes this game different compared to its peers is the fact that it's filled to the brim with anime BS of the horny/ecchi kind, mixed with a bit of slice of life. You have the over the top "accidents", the usual pervert main character superpowers, items that allow you to give anime girls bigger bonkhonagahoogs and of course, a literal gameplay mechanic calle the "Doki Doki Mode" where you touch anime girls where they like it. Trust me, I also cannot believe I'm writing this stuff myself.
But here's the thing: The game knows what it is. It knows the premise is absurd and tries to have fun with itself whenever possible, resulting in a game where much to my disbelief, is actually one of the most unique and fun experiences I have ever had, to the point I dare call it one of my favorites.

Truth be told, the game is actually incredibly well-written and is very entertaining from a story perspective. The dialogues that you read in the game, and especially the ones you get when it asks you to make a choice are witty with some light drama at times, making it clear that the development and localization teams were having a ton of fun writing them. And in terms of special events you get in middle of the gameplay in the form of minigames, they are unhinged and delve into fetish territory at many times. I honestly cannot name another game where it managed to constantly surprise me and make me laugh by introducing such activities.
This makes for a very enjoyable time going through the game for the first few hours, to the point I found myself eagerly waiting for the next visual novel section or minigame to start. But unfortunately, other aspects of the game are not as good as the story and writing, ultimately resulting in a subpar experience. Let's start with the length of the game first.

The game has multiple story routes that each take about 3 hours to complete, while also branching into three different endings (true, good, bad) depending on how much the affection meter of your route's target character is filled in the end. And the way you fill this affection meter is by getting high scores on the minigames and choosing correct dialogue options. Seems straight forward, but not when you realize the latter is bound to the main character's stats.
Before starting a new game, you have to choose between different personality types that each give you different starting values on your main stats: Intelligence, Athleticism, Style and Lewdness. Then you can raise or decrease each of these stats by buying specific items from the shop, or using the Doki Doki mode. These values are very important as the might cause some dialogue option to become unavailable. And if those dialogues are the ones needed for the true ending, you might be forced to start over or reload a previous save file.
Then we have the progression system. When you start the game for the first time, only two story routes are available and you need to unlock the rest by getting the good/true ending on the previously available ones. Now, let's assume you failed to get your desired ending on your first try. Taking that into account, you basically need to spend about 20 hours to get true endings for all main routes, and +40 hours to %100 the game. Even more if you want to see every ending. And this is simply too much playtime for a game with such limited gameplay style.

Rail shooter is a game genre that really doesn't give you a lot of freedom for innovation. No matter what you do, it will retain its arcade roots. The only thing you can attempt, is to make it in a way that the player would want to replay them. And this is where Gal★Gun: Double Peace stumbles as it really cannot persuade you to come back to it and finish other routes.
The game simply does not have a lot to offer in the gameplay department. You get multiple story routes to choose from with different minigames and dialogues, but everything else gets repeated. Levels, boss behaviors, introductory and ending sequences, encounter structure, musics, Doki Doki mechanic... all of them get repeated during your attempts. Hell, even the girl models get reused en masse and you'll see identical characters standing right next to each other and/or for multiple times through a single level. All of these gradually build up a severe feeling of repetition and boredom, especially considering how long it takes to fully complete the game.
Unfortunately, the actual shooting also loses its entertainment value pretty fast. You only see three types of opponents in the game aside from bosses. Branching paths don't have major differences and only decide whether or not you can get certain collectibles. Aside from collectibles, there's no global progression system like upgrades that carry over and there's no NG+ modes. And the usage of mouse as an input device makes the game trivially easy, with no new feature to compensate for the reduced difficulty. All of these points turn the gameplay incredibly stale and boring after a short while, to the point that even the writing cannot save it. I simply cannot bring myself to start another route anymore, even though I really like the writing and want to see more of it. I just don't want to waste 2 hours of my life doing something I don't enjoy just for that 1 hour of good stuff.

Unfortunately, there are other big issues as well.
The most notable issue is how unpleasant the camera system feels like when it asks you to shoot while moving. It works fine when you are stationary but when it comes to on-rails movement, the game quickly throws the camera around, creating this incredibly janky motion while also expecting you to shoot at collectables. Considering you need to zoom-in to see some of the collectables, this makes for a bad shooting experience if you want to go after them.
Then we have a lack of much needed sensitivity settings for the motions you have to perform in minigames. The ones that have you making straight lines are fine, but circular motions are incredibly stiff and imprecise, making them unbelievably difficult to do either with a mouse or a controller. There's a reason why "Tender Loving Care" achievement only has a %15 completion rate, and this is why.
I would also say something about the port quality but I never ran into any issues playing this on a Windows 11 PC, all while there are numerous reports of the game constantly crashing. So I guess this is one of those cases where your luck determines how well it performs.

Writing is witty and story events are unhinged in the best way possible, but gameplay is very limited and becomes boring very fast. Still, worth a try on a deep sale if you are even slightly interested.

Just saying, but I do have a curator page. If you like my remarks about games, you can find more of them here: https://steamproxy.net/steamstore/curator/44130985-TDP%27s-Gaming-Escapades

I always get this thought that while western developers were always afraid of new ideas through time, eastern devs had not shied away from trying new things. Like, what if we had robots in the wild west? Or what if the president of United States piloted a mech and fought against the vice president?
VASARA games combine science fiction with Japan's history, creating this interesting mashup of mechanical beasts being piloted by the samurai. A premise that has ended up in creation of two unique shmups. And a collection that... well... let's talk about them, shall we?

The basics of VASARA 1 and 2 are the same as other shmup games. But they do offer a unique mechanic in the form of melee attacks. Each character has a melee attack with bullet clearing properties which is accessible by holding down the shot button and releasing it after a short time. The games even offer a powered up version of melee attack as a separate offensive/defensive mechanic in the form of vasara attack.
In the first game, you have access to the vasara attack in addition to bombs. This attack is bound to a bar at the top of the screen that fills by collecting jewels dropped from the enemies. When filled, you can use it to unleash an attack that covers a wide area and heavily damages enemies. Meanwhile, the second game removes bombs in favor of vasara attack slots being increased from 1 to 3.
But make no mistake, both of the games are still very hard in true arcade fashion. There are tons of instances where you either need perfect movements or prior knowledge of the incoming attack patterns to avoid being hit. And sometimes, this really proves to be an incredibly hard task thanks to the games' visuals.

Both VASARA 1 and 2 look gorgeous. Backgrounds & player/enemy sprites are very detailed, character portraits are very well-drawn and stages are very colorful. Normally, this is not an issue. But when we consider how much clutter you have to face, it does become one.
Basically the games have heavy screen clutter. You have enemies and background NPCs moving on the screen, gems constantly dropping from enemies, projectiles getting shot from you and enemies' sides, alongside various others. This results in visual elements blending in and it gets very hard to differentiate them, leading to unfair hits as a result.
And this gets worse when the enemies start using smaller projectiles. VASARA 1 starts introducing enemies that shoot smaller projectiles from the half-way point and in case of VASARA 2, it gets even worse. Every enemy projectile in VASARA 2 is either smaller or thinner compared to the first game, and is less noticeable especially with everything else that is going on. So it gets pretty easy for you to get hit by something and not know how it happened.

Obviously, screen clutter and poor clarity are big problems. But I find the games' behavior for their final levels much more infuriating and even insulting.
The final stages change the rules at the last second. If you die in the final stages and decide to continue, the games will throw you back to the beginning of the stages and force you to do everything all over again to get another shot at the boss. It's never fair to the player to change the rules in the final level, just to add some frankly unneeded artificial difficulty to the game. Maybe this was the norm for arcade games back then, but now? We're not playing them in arcades.
And this is such a shame, because such design decision basically nukes the fun and replayability of the games for casual and/or less experienced crowd. This is the final nail in the coffin that strips the game of all its fun factor, when put next to the heavy visual clutter.

The overall quality of this collection is... mixed. On one hand, it performs very well when it comes to technical performance. The dialogues all have translations. The gallery has a bunch of original and redrawn artwork (for a purpose which you will find out about soon), alongside promotional materials. And you are given a number of options to tweak your gameplay experience with. Then we have the problems.
The game's controller support is utterly broken and doesn't recognize a lot of controllers, leading you towards using Steam Input API. Furthermore, you are not able to do any button remapping in the game. The game's controls are pre-defined and it asks you to do your own changes from Steam Input settings, which the game keeps reopening every time you go into controls menu. And as for keyboard users... the game itself never provides a solution.
Not only that, there are quite a number of settings that require you to restart VASARA 1 and 2 even when they shouldn't. Want to change the visual filter or remove the art from the sides of the screen mid-game? They require a restart. Want a refresher on the controls or change the screen type and audio levels? Go back to the main menu. Most of these are not deal breakers, but it's pretty weird to see them like this while other collections allow you to do them on the fly.
And then we have the "but why?" kind of additions. For example, was there really a need to create a 3D menu for this collection? Sure, it looks somewhat pretty but serves no purpose. Especially compared to similar examples like Trine 2 which had the purpose of showcasing the game's visual prowess. Then we have the brand-new timeless mode...

Remember the redrawn artworks I mentioned earlier? Those were created to be used in a brand-new game mode: VASARA Timeless. And this new mode is...
I appreciate the devs trying to create an entirely new game mode with everything faithfully recreated in HD, but the end result is not ideal. This mode utilizes 3D graphics presented in 16:9 aspect ratio, allowing 4 players to play together simultaneously. It's clear a lot of work has gone into it and the devs want you to play it, as about %75 of the achievements are tied to this mode.
But I don't find it entertaining. Compared to the games it takes from, timeless mode is aesthetically very bland and boring. Instead of going through beautiful, history-inspired stages this mode has you flying over cliffs, barren grounds, beds of water and washed out flora. Not only that, enemy patterns feel very uninspired.
Then we have other shortcomings. First, it follows the bullet design mentality of VASARA 2, making them blend in with other visual elements. Second, the wide playing field makes a single player playthrough more challenging as enemies can attack you from any direction. Coupled with there being no i-frames at the end of a dash (a move exclusive to this mode), you can always get hit from somewhere that you were not expecting. Third, there are no continues in this mode. All of these make for an inferior experience.

I don't see this being enjoyable for the masses. The originals are very hard by design, and this collection not only has not succeeded in making them more accessible, but has quite a number of issues itself. Not to mention the new game mode not bringing much to the table.
I would only recommend this to diehard shmup fans. As for the rest, there are many shmups out there at the same price that do things way better. Wait for a sale if you really want to try this.


A mixed bag. The original games are fun, but clarity issues make them unfairly hard. And the collection itself does well on some parts, then completely screws up on some of the other important aspects

Just saying, but I do have a curator page. If like my remarks about games, you can find more of them here: https://steamproxy.net/steamstore/curator/44130985-TDP%27s-Gaming-Escapades

Let me tell you a story.
Back when Streets of Rage 4 was first announced, I thought it would fail to be a good game and refused to be excited for it, with the reason being DotEmu's involvement. A lot of my friends didn't get why I was so mad and I think that's because they never had any experience in having their nostalgia shattered to teeny tiny pieces by the utter negligence of this company.
Back then, DotEmu was utterly infamous for offering incredibly lackluster emulations of various retro games and never updating them properly. And the worst part was that many companies, and specifically SNK, kept giving them permission to do more of them. Such negligence ultimately caused the stores to be filled with broken re-releases of retro games, most made by one company...
...and Raiden Legacy is one of them.

On the surface, this game performs just like other ones that were handled by DotEmu. For example, the frame rate never goes beyond 57 fps and sometimes even drops down to 54. The emulation is also pretty wonky, with the games starting to stutter quite frequently throughout gameplay. But then the game starts introducing other issues that are incredibly baffling to see.
The menus, and I repeat, THE MENUS of the game are the most demanding part of it, each suddenly causing the application to hog more CPU than it really should (as high as %30) just for the actual emulation to only need a franction of that amount (%1 at max). Moreover, each transition between the menus freezes the game for a splitsecond. And this is such a surprise because the UI looks incredibly ugly, simple and amateurishly designed for it to be demanding; especially compared to other games that DotEmu has put out or even the GOG version of this game, which I will get to later. I mean... there's not even a music track playing in the main menu! Was that so hard to have a track playing from one of the games?
And then there's this issue with the game's settings messing with what they are not supposed to mess with. The game never respects your resolution settings, always reverting to the default with the culprit being the HD music option being active. How does a music option break resolution settings?! Or the portrait mode actually rotates your operating system's display instead of just the game's process, even in the windowed mode! Also, who in their right mind decided to have the confirm button do everything? Despite coming out in 2015, Raiden Legacy does not support using the left and right directions to cycle between available menu options. Instead, you need to cycle between them by mashing the A button (on a Xbox controller). Even DotEmu's previous releases had better menu navigation than Raiden Legacy on Steam, what's their excuse here?!

After suffering through the Steam version, I tried the "allegedly" better GOG version, just to find an entirely different build of the game. The GOG version seems to be a direct port from mobile and therefore has a much cleaner and more goodlooking UI, though the overall design really does feel out of place on PC. To my shock, the GOG version also runs at solid 60 fps and has no stuttering, but adds its own exclusive issues to the mix.
Contrary to the Steam version, the GOG version has no controller support in the menus, the default keybindings are atrocious (why the hell is the A button used for pausing the game?!) and each time trying to navigate the menus results in +10 seconds of the game freezing. I'm not joking, the freezing is so long that even Windows itself thinks the process has died.
So basically, DotEmu has created multiple versions of the same game, with each of them having different looks and their own problems that you cannot find in the other. I have heard of exclusive games and content, but exclusive bugs and issues? Truly marvelous. A groundbreaking move from DotEmu to move the bar of quality for their emulated retro games catalogue to a brand-new, previously unheard of low.

So, now we know that the collection's performance is all over the place. But how are the games themselves?
Well, you really can't go wrong with Raiden. This series of games have consistently offered a fun gameplay, unless we are talking about Raiden V which is... ugh..., and the games in this collection are no exception. The only problem here is how DotEmu has handled them, because the games we have here are not 1:1 arcade emulations and don't offer much customization. DotEmu's versions skip the intros and the "insert coin" screens using savestates, immediately starting you on main stages or the character/plane select. And this causes some issues.
First, we have the preservation concerns. Publishers like us to stop emulating games and buy their re-releases. But why should we do that if they constantly rip parts of those games away and make them incomplete? And don't you dare hit me with "but we don't need those" nonsense. Seeing the intros and gameplay demonstration popping up is a staple of arcade gaming. That's how many of us were intrigued to try those games. To take them away is just nonsensical
Second, the aforementioned fact means there aren't much settings to customize your experience both visually (like optional side arts) and gameplay-wise. The game never allows you to change the number of lives, credits and bombs in the arcade mode and doesn't even offer a coin insert button. So you are forced to beat all of the games with only 3 credits available. The only way you can have unlimited credits, is by beating all of the levels normally and then using the training mode, which is incredibly dumb if you ask me. Considering how challenging Raiden series can get, this is a very bad move that hurts casual playthroughs.

If you are still not sure about DotEmu's negligence during this game's development, then by all means take a look at the game's installation directory to see definitive proof.
The UI graphics used in the GOG version of this game are already present in the Steam version. And that's why a simple file change allows you to change your game version with ease. Not only that, this game also contains resources from Metal Slug 2 for some reason, which DotEmu had also worked on! You can literally find that game's menu backgrounds and even Marco's portrait in the game files!
How did they forget to take them out after all these years if they were placeholders? Why create different versions of the same game to make supporting them difficult? Why this one game has a significantly dumbed down UI design compared to all of their other retro emulations? Why leave all of the glaring problems intact for about a decade? Why re-use the mobile specific autoshot mode for the PC/Console versions where players have easy access to physical buttons?
Raiden deserved better than this. You deserve better than this. Avoid Raiden Legacy.


The games are fun, but Raiden (and you as the player) deserve better than a lackluster and lazily-made collection of savestates with major performance issues that are still there after almost 10 years

Just saying, but I do have a curator page. If like my remarks about games, you can find more of them here: https://steamproxy.net/steamstore/curator/44130985-TDP%27s-Gaming-Escapades

I have seen many people who think making a shmup is an easy task. But the reality is obviously way different than that. Making a shmup is as hard as any other game and if you are not careful, you can easily screw up and create something that ends up being vastly inferior to the other games in the same genre.
Case in point, Sine Mora EX. The game certainly looks good and even has some seriously talented people like Suda51 and Akira Yamaoka on the development team. But the end result is a game that makes so many critical mistakes when it comes to shmup game design.

Sine Mora EX introduces time as a core mechanic of the gameplay. Instead of having lives like a traditional shmup, this game gives you a time limit for every section of every level and if that timer hits zero, you will immediately be directed to the game over screen. You can increase the amount of time you have by killing enemies and collecting certain powerups, while taking hits decreases it by a set amount.
The idea itself is intriguing, but the problem is that I think it adds nothing of value to the game in execution. Even the story mode never clarifies why is this mechanic a thing instead of a normal lives system. But if you ask me, I would say the time mechanic is a countermeasure taken by the devs to make the game a little more bearable; as they knew a normal lives system will result in a lot of angry players complaining about the game's shortcomings. Because the more you play this game, the more you will find out how many cardinal sins this game commits in terms of shmup design.

And the reason such a lives system was needed is because of how incredibly easy it is to get hit in this game in unfair ways.
Sine Mora EX does an absolutely horrible job when it comes to visual clarity. Sometimes, it's really hard to differetiate between hazards that are in the background and those that are in front of you. Some of the projectiles, especially missiles or blue & orange projectiles that are much smaller than the rest, blend-in with the backgrounds & environments and become hard to see as a result. Even some of the enemies can blend-in with the environment. So, there will be tons of moments when you genuinely won't know what hit you.
That's not where my complaints end though, as the game also tries to make you take hits in very unfair manners. In some of the levels, enemies and their projectiles come at you from behind, with no prior warning. Some of the boss attacks come at you out of nowhere with no prior telegraphing. The game even has the audacity to use one hit kill hazards, with many of them designed in a way to get you on your first time. Then we have the unclear hitboxes for both the controllable aircrafts and the environment, which is especially visible in levels where you have to navigate through narrow passages such as caves, autoscrollers or the penultimate level which puts you inside of a rotating maze.
So, I think we can all see how implementation of a normal health system could have made this game unbearable to play. But the problem is that the time mechanic also hurts the game in places. To explain this claim, we have to get into the mess that is the power up system.

Sine Mora EX is one of those shmup games that use a power up system for your aircraft's main weapon. You can collect power up tokens to level up your main weapon, but if you get hit by the enemies, you will lose them and the game will give you a chance to recollect them. As much as I am not a fan of such power up systems in shmups, I am willing to accept them if they are not detrimental to the gameplay...
...Do I have to say how much I loathe the way Sine Mora EX handles power ups?
Upon getting hit in Sine Mora EX you will see all of your additionally collected powerups flying out of your aircraft, resetting your power level to the default value, and all of them will be thrown towards the front where the enemies and their projectiles are coming from. And what's worse, these powerups all have collision physics which means they can collide with the enemies and the environment, getting thrown towards locations where you have no chance of recollecting them. The situation is so bad that if you do not collect them the instant you lost them, there's a close to zero chance of them floating back towards you. In that case, you have to make do with your default firepower until you find more.
This creates major problems down the road as you play any of the game modes. The drops you get from enemies are randomized, which means you might not find enough power ups when you desperately need them. Your resources are also preserved upon going from one level to the other, even if you are playing the story mode (that makes no sense from a narration standpoint btw), which means you might see yourself facing the final boss of the game with no upgrades, such as happened to me.
And what do you think can happen in these situations? You have to use an underpowered weapon against hordes of enemies and bosses who are showering you with projectiles, all while the clock is ticking down and every hit (fair or unfair) causes you to have even less time remaining, making you pray for the game to give you a power up soon. And you know this is a legit concern and a sign of a failed design when the game itself breaks its rules by constantly giving you time refills & extra power ups to have you surviving the final boss fight.

I cannot fathom how boring this game feels as a whole for me.
There are some incredibly designed bosses in this game. One of the bosses is a massive construction vehicle that transforms into a gigantic mech, and another one is a train with a very sick design that is equipped with tons of weapons. But the bossfights themselves are devoid of any excitement. All you do is just shooting at the damn things until they blow up, with nothing interesting happening. And the same applies to regular levels.
The soundtrack doesn't help the situation either. Many of the tracks are beautifully composed. But when it comes to hearing them in the game, most of them do nothing to elevate the experience. I never felt like the soundtrack is doing the levels or bossfights justice and none of them felt memorable to me. This is such a fatal flaw in a genre where the soundtracks are usually the highlight of the experience. And I don't know what or who is at fault here: The composer's lack of experience in shmup genre, or the director probably forcing a certain theme because of the story mode.

The cherry on top of everything, is the questionable performance of the PC port.
The initial loading process is rather slow, even on a SSD. The game is prone to crashing at random, especially when you get to the end of a level, which makes progression difficult as the game only saves after a complete arcade run or story chapter completion. Sometimes it even disables various Steam features such as the overlay and screenshots at random, with any attempt to access them resulting in a crash.


It has neat ideas, but fails to execute them. Coupled with the horrible visual clarity, infuriating power up system and a bland gameplay, Sine Mora EX doesn't have much to say in the shmup genre.

Just saying, but I do have a curator page. If you like my remarks about games, you can find more of them here: https://steamproxy.net/steamstore/curator/44130985-TDP%27s-Gaming-Escapades

You know... sometimes you really like a game, but cannot bring yourself to recommend it to other people because you feel like it's not the right thing to do. Like, the developer responsible for the game might have done some suspicious, anti-consumer, or similar stuff.
Vanguard Princess is one such game. The game itself is really good, but the publisher for the translated version has done stuff that makes one not want to trust them and instead go for the free, untranslated version.

Let me explain the situation here.
Vanguard Princess is a fighting game made by Tomoaki Sugeno (aka Suge9), who was previously an employee at Capcom. The game was released in 2008 for free on their own blog, and was constantly updated until 2011 when Suge9 disappeared from the web after the release of version 1.08e.
Years later, eigoMANGA publishes a paid, but translated version of the game. They have allegedly gotten the rights to the game from Suge9, because the only thing we have is their "trust me bro" statement and we can't get in touch with the dev to confirm it. Then they started updating the game by themselves, allegedly creating glitches and issues that were not in the original, which I can not confirm myself.
And now there's a legal war between eigoMANGA and exA-Arcadia, because both of them claim they can use the IP in absence of the original dev! The former claims they have ownership of the IP, and the latter has used Japanese copyright laws to get permission. Quite a messy situation, huh? It will get messier later... just wait a bit.

Despite everything that was and is going on, the game itself is great. The characters look incredible, the animations are smooth, the artstyle is vibrant and colorful, and the music is pleasant to listen to. On top of all these, the gameplay is really fast and fun, and you don't need a ton of fighting game knowledge to enjoy it. This is a masterfully made fighting game, with its only problems being its amount of available content (which we can ignore due to it being free/cheap) and the technical problems created by its engine.
Vanguard Princess is made with Enterbrain's 2D Fighter Maker (2DFM for short), and 2DFM is a pretty old engine that defies death. While it is still used to make jawdropping fighting games, including this game which pushes the engine to its absolute limits, 2DFM is pretty limited in terms of what it offers and is not up to par with the technlogical advances of today.
For example, the games need to be manually patched by the devs or they won't run on non-Japanese system locales, the fullscreen mode can be absolutely broken, there is no online functionality unless you use third-party apps, or the keybinding is a nightmare since you are never explicitly told which button does what. People who play doujin fighting games are used to all this, but the average consumer is not and these might be dealbreakers to them.
Still, if the game interests you, I highly recommend trying it. But I do not recommend you to get it on Steam if possible. As for the reason for this request, we need to get DEEP into what has happened with this game under eigoMANGA, and check the DLCs...

Do me a favor and take a look at DLC depots for this game on SteamDB. Or if you have them on Steam, open the DLC menu. Notice how every DLC has outrageous sizes for a purely 2D game, from 563 MB to 1.43 GB. Installing all of these DLCs in addition to the main game should take about 6 GB on your PC. Yet it doesn't. The game with all of its DLCs checked for installation only takes 1.55 GB of your disk space. And the reason is...
With the exception of art book and OST, every single piece of DLC contains a different version of the game that overwrites the others!
From a preservation point of view, this is actually amazing. But from a consumer's point of view, this has caused the game to have one of the most unnecessarily convoluted DLC structures in a game EVER.

I guess "bad" is still an understatement, considering the highly questionable handling of the DLCs. Let me clarify what each DLC has:

• Director's Cut: Literally the free version, includes Lilith and Kurumi, but is translated.
  
• Lilith: Alternate story texts, exclusive new backgrounds, exclusive new music. No new character. Turned obsolete by Kurumi DLC.
  
• Hilda Rize: Playable boss character, alternate story texts, exclusive new backgrounds, exclusive new music. Turned obsolete by Kurumi DLC.
  
• Kurumi: Hilda Rize character, alternate story texts, exclusive new backgrounds, exclusive new music, removes difficulty options in favor of new modes. No new character.
  
• Online Deluxe: Alternate story texts, all contents of Kurumi DLC but without the extra modes, brings back difficulty options. No new character.

So, the publisher is pulling a Street Fighter 2 type of release with the DLCs, without providing anything actually significant in them and even taking things away while going from one to the other. They took a free game, translated it, added exactly one character to it, and then sold multiple versions of the said game with slightly different contents through confusing DLCs that have deceptive-looking names.

I can't believe how incompetent the publisher was at handling this mess. While now there's no trace of them, possibly because of legal issues, every single store page for this game used to have ads for pre-paid debit cards and the mobile version. Just use Wayback Machine to see that I'm not lying. The publisher would constantly use Steam's news feature to bother us whenever the mobile version got 10 more followers on kickstarter. There's also a comic series with Donald Trump in it. And despite all this, they never had the time to clean up the DLC pages and make things easier to understand?!
No, just saying "An updated version of Vanguard Princess" is not enough. That's vague at worst, and at best implies a version upgrade like GGXrd Rev2 or Koihime Enbu RyoRaiRai Version 3. If there's not going to be a definitive version, they should at least be clear about DLC contents and clarify that each DLC contains a different game version that overwrites the others. Because many would try to buy everything to have the full package by instinct. Unless the intent IS to make people believe the DLCs work like other fighters. Then it's another story...
And no, cheap price doesn't justify this either. If you knew only one of these DLCs contains the nearly-full experience AND ALSO allows you to go online, would you have bought the rest? If you knew about Lilithport, a FREE matchmaking app for 2DFM games to play online, or the fact every version of the game has online support already included, would you have BOUGHT the Online Deluxe edition? And don't you dare bring up balance patches and competitive gaming for a niche game.

With all that said, I can't recommend the Steam version in good faith. I am not against paying for a translation and I know how hard it is to faithfully translate something from the source, but the incredibly incompetent handling of the DLC, alongside the publisher's primary focus seemingly being elsewhere instead of the game itself... it just makes me not want to trust them.
Just get the original, free version of the game and activate online play with lilithport. You won't miss a lot.

A fantastic and very fun, yet technologically dated fighting game. However, the publisher's questionable decisions and preferences make it hard to recommend the paid version over the free version

Just saying, but I do have a curator page. If you like my remarks about games, you can find more of them here: https://steamproxy.net/steamstore/curator/44130985-TDP%27s-Gaming-Escapades

Note: This review only covers the base game, with no DLCs installed

To put it simply, Horizon Chase Turbo feels like a HD reimagining of Top Gear 1 and 2 on the SNES. The devs might have named other games such as Outrun as inspirations, but I firmly believe they only did that because stuff like Outrun are more known among the masses. However, I firmly believe the developers missed the mark on various aspects of the game.

For the most part, the game very closely follows the gameplay design of Top Gear 1, except it changes some stuff compared to that game. The core gameplay feels the same: You enter some races and try to navigate the tracks while overtaking your opponents using a limited amount of boosts at your disposal, and it feels perfectly similar to how Top Gear and Outrun worked. The only extras that Horizon Chase Turbo adds to the mix are blue collectible tokens, which are used to add replayability to the tracks, and the changes made to the fuel system.
In the original Top Gear, fuel acts as a time limit as if it runs out, your car will lose all acceleration and gradually come to a halt. It made you do your best in races to play well. And if you needed any, the game offered you a pitstop to refuel, while giving you the chance to depart at anytime in order to not fall behind the competition. Horizon Chase Turbo takes the same mechanic and changes it. Now instead of pitstops, you have fuel tokens on the tracks that replenish your fuel gauge for one point each. However the placement of fuel pickups can get questionable at times, with them being placed in locations that are easily missable, forcing you to do an entire lap to get another chance. A big difference compared to the same mechanic in Top Gear, and what can become a massive hurdle to casuals.
For the first 3-4 hours, the game is actually fun... really fun. But then it starts becoming utterly boring. The thing is that the gameplay is very barebones, even compared to the original Top Gear games, and simply cannot keep you interested for 10 to 15 hours. What you get in Horizon Chase Turbo is the base gameplay the first Top Gear game offered. There's no track hazards like ramps and barrels, and you can't switch between manual & automatic transmissions or change difficulty like in Top Gear 1. The upgrade system is incredibly simplified compared to Top Gear 2. And the track/level system is more like a traditional racing game than what Outrun offered. So basically, the game offers nothing to compensate for its long playtime and keep the players interested.

Horizon Chase Turbo has a fair amount of visual variety. The races can happen at different times of the day, even transitioning between them, or in any weather situation. Although the way objects and hazards spawn in is quite jarring. It seems like they spawn small and grow in size as you approach them. This might not be a problem to many, and is pretty invisible on many of the game's tracks, but it is a problem to me when I notice it being there, like in the city tracks. I believe this method of displaying objects makes for a quite jarring and distracting visual experience as a number of the models spin in place on the x-axis as you get closer to them, or you can see gaps in-between tunnel walls as you pass them.
And the same "good with the bad" situation also applies to the music. While the music tracks are really well-composed, there's not enough of them compared to the game's length. Some of the tracks are even exclusive to certain race types. So the usual music tracks just get repeated over and over and over again, eventually losing their magic. Not only that, the music tracks usually have little in common with the aesthetics of the level you are racing in, taking away from the immersion.
So what you are left with is a game that for the most of it, feels like you are racing to the sound of a random music playlist in the background, on repeat. Now I know some of you might want to debate my take on this matter, but I firmly believe the choice of music can make or break a racing experience. In Split/Second, the music and its playback system go hand in hand. Mascot racers' soundtracks try to fit the theme/setting of each level. As I have mentioned before, the gameplay of Horizon Chase Turbo doesn't go beyond its Top Gear/Outrun formula for its entirety, so you need something else to keep the thrill going. And hearing the same music over and over again, or hearing a high energy music in a level where you are driving in a mountaintop at night and cannot see anything simply doesn't feel right.

A lot of negative reviews on the store page talk about how the AI likes to cheat, and they are right. At first, this issue is not noticeable. But then slowly and surely, the AI starts to cheat; sometimes for its own gain and sometimes to give you a pity victory so you can feel better about yourself.
The opponents randomly start increasing or decreasing their speed, either becoming Jack Benton and Sofia Martinez from FlatOut 2 and utterly dominating the race, or suddenly lose speed so much that you can catch up to them with incredible ease and win. In one race, I was 3-4 seconds behind the 2nd place and even crashed at one point in the final lap. I was completely sure that I had no way of catching up to them. Then the next thing I see is me blasting past the 2nd and 1st place racers, even finishing 2 seconds ahead of them. This does not make any sense, and my victory was nothing but hollow and unenjoyable.
And this is just the beginning. From time to time, you can see a racer you had passed suddenly zooming past you at incredible speed, despite not even using a boost. Your opponents suddenly become way too effective at blocking your way or trying to slam you into hazards, even suspiciously working together to achieve those goals which makes narrower roads twice as infuriating. You will see the opponents outspeeding you even if you are boosting. The cheating behavior of the AI is so blatant and is undeniable.

This game used to have several features that were removed from the game as part of a "end of support" plan. The online leaderboards, which were referred to as "one of Horizon Chase Turbo's core features" by the developers themselves in a pinned post on Steam Discussions, is now completely stripped from the game instead of, for example, getting migrated to Steamworks. Right now, the leaderboards only show local times, with the global leaderboards transferred over to a text channel in the developer's discord server, basically rendering it completely useless.
The removal of online features also means you can no longer try to compete with your friends or the top players by racing their ghost data. Now you can only compete with yourself, trying to beat your own best times; which is not really hard to do as you are constantly getting new upgrades and cars. This also means you no longer have access to customized driver names based on your profile and everyone will appear as "Horizon Chaser".
True, the game has tons of content; But as I said before, the gameplay doesn't have what it takes to make you want to keep going. The leaderboards being a core feature of the game was not a lie, as its inclusion made you want to play it more even if it was only to dethrone your friends. Taking it out just made the game a bit worse.


Starts pretty well, then slowly loses its appeal and becomes boring & repetitive due to the gameplay not offering much to compensate for its long playtime, and also the cheating AI.

Just saying, but I do have a curator page. If like my remarks about games, you can find more of them here: https://steamproxy.net/steamstore/curator/44130985-TDP%27s-Gaming-Escapades

I know why you're here to read reviews. You got this game recommended to you by random, saw the trailer, got mildly interested to know what the actual hell is happening in this game and why the composer has went so hard making a theme song about tofu of all things, and scrolled a bit more to see what other people are saying about this game before trying to spend your money on it.
If you've come for a review on this game, you've come to the wrong place. However, if you have come for an outstanding tofu dish recipe, you've come to the right place.

Just wanted to try and make fun of those reviews that post food recipes instead of providing actual useful information about the games, and I did. Anyway... let's get to business.

The Strongest TOFU is a platforming game. You have access to three variations of tofu (4 after beating the game once), each acting as the game's difficulty settings and changing the way you play it. For example, the third tofu is slippery and therefore adds ice physics to the mix while others behave normaly.
As for the gameplay itself, to say it in a very simple manner, think if you are playing Jump King but you still have control on your character after you initiate jumping. You walk to the left or the right, and pressing any face button on your controller causes your chosen tofu to contract and charge up. After you let go of the button, depending on how long you have held it and which direction you are holding at the time, the tofu jumps around while being engulfed in flames for a limited time, which gives it the ability to kill enemies. However, a simple miscalculation can be deadly as tofu is fragile and can break due to fall damage.
There's also a time limit present in each level that gives you an incentive to be fast, but the execution is flawed (or rather, not intended to be serious) as you need to really try to run out of time, removing it as a form of challenge. So far it seems good. The fundamentals are done well, the controls are nice, the music really doesn't fit the mood of the levels but is well-composed (with the theme song being the highlight)... there's one problem though...

Even with everything that the game throws at you and with all of the deaths and retries, the game only lasts about an hour; just as the dev has warned you on the game's store page.
On one hand, this length is actually perfect for the game. Any more and it would have ruined the game because it certainly cannot keep the flow going for extended periods of time. The premise and the gameplay will simply not allow this to happen. But on the other hand, this makes the game extremely hard to recommend. The game is not that challenging and most of the levels can be cleared with relative ease; with the fall damage accounting for most of your deaths. Not many people would be willing to pay for a game that ends in about an hour even if it's cheap. This makes for a game that the players' tastes and preferences ultimately decide whether or not they are going to purchase it.
It also doesn't help that the game misses the chance to add some replayability to itself. Throughout the game, you can find various hidden locations, but they don't add anything to the game as they neither contain special things in them nor unlock achievements. And speaking of achievements, there's only one in the whole game for beating it once. And this makes me wonder why only one? This game has the potential to add replayability through its achievements and it pains me to see that this chance is not taken advantage of. Right now, this game can have additional achievements with these unlock conditions:

• Beating the game with each tofu type
  
• Beating each set of stages under a specific time limit
  
• Beating each set of stages without dying once
  
• Finding hidden areas throughout the game
  
• Watching every single cutscene in the game without skipping
  
• Reaching specific milestones in the unlockable minigame

All of these can add more playtime. Sure, the completionists will be mad that their easy %100 has been taken away from them, but when you have such an easy opportunity to increase your game's longetivity and make players willingly spend more time with it, why not take it?

The main reason one would want to play this game is because of its bizarre premise and to see what can happen next, not the platforming. And this is not unusual as there are lots of games out there, mostly of eastern origin, that do the same thing: Trying to compensate for their shortcomings by offering insane and unorthodox stuff, resulting in a unique product and an equally unique experience. You can see them being showcased in each year's speedrunning events and they are always one of the highlights. But the question is, does this game deliver in that regard?
Well... it depends on how much exposure you have had to these kind of games. Personally I don't think it does. The game does have this sense of bizarreness and strangeness to it. Your reward for clearing each set of levels is witnessing videos of various stages of tofu being processed and packaged for sale and consumption, which is pretty neat to witness. The visual presentation of the game is quite bizarre, and the situation gets even more bizarre when we get to the enemies, making the game look like a kusoge (and I mean it in a good way). And we also have completely unexpected events popping up out of nowhere, which I will not spoil here.
Now why I think the game doesn't deliver despite all of this? That's because I expected more of this game. The game's trailer showed off quite a number of its surprises, making me think that what I was witnessing is only a small portion of the insanity I would be seeing in the final game. But the truth is, the game doesn't offer much more than that. Furthermore, the game also re-uses a specific sequence in each set of stages, which removes the novelty of it and makes it repetitive. I expected this game to go wild and I firmly believe it played it safe. Maybe it can prove to be really unique in your case, but it wasn't like that for me.


A pretty niche game, and an incredibly short one at that (1hr) with unfortunately no replay value. For most, it's not worth it. But if you like to try such games for the first time, it's a good entry point.

Just saying, but I do have a curator page. If you like my remarks about games, you can find more of them here: https://steamproxy.net/steamstore/curator/44130985-TDP%27s-Gaming-Escapades

Making a sequel to a successful game is risky. On one hand, you have the opportunity to expand upon what you had built and fix its issues and shortcomings. But on the other hand, you have the player expectations. Depending on how the sequel is designed, it can fracture its playerbase.
On the surface, La-Mulana 2 seems like a worthy sequel. Areas look really good and characters are more detailed, have smoother animations and sport incredible-looking artworks. Aside from some exceptions like the remixed versions of the first game's tracks, the music still feels pleasant to listen to, even though it's no longer memorable. The controls have also been tweaked and now you are able to correct your position in the air, which makes for some pleasant platforming.
With all that, one is lead to believe that La-Mulana 2 must be nothing but a better version of the first game. But unfortunately, La-Mulana 2 also attempts to change its gameplay formula, turning the end result into a game that maintains a good quality, but diehard fans of its predecessor will have a very hard time enjoying.

I cannot believe how wildly different this game feels compared to the first game. La-Mulana 1 threw you into the gameplay with minimal information and said "good luck" to force you to find everything out for yourself with trial & error, as if you were an archaeologist who was discovering things on their own. La-Mulana 2 however, goes against the design mentality of its prequel especially in the beginning hours.
The first 2-3 hours in La-Mulana 2 has the game deliberately blocking off a lot of pathways to force you to find and beat the first area's boss before doing anything else. If you ever decide to not do that or fail to realize that's what the game wants you to do first, you will be entering the only optionally available area that features ice physics and instant death hazards, not meant to be messed with at that point. So you're basically forced to do what the game wants you to do before unveiling more of the map or you will get utterly lost and infuriated.
And the situation doesn't get much better after this time period. While the game opens up after beating the first boss and starts to feel more like the first game, it still does things that are quite at odds with what the series originally became known for. For starters, the game puts certain useful items (like the chalice) directly in your way instead of having you finding them as a reward for exploration or puzzle solving. The progression between areas feels very forced, as if the developers have designed an intended route for you to take, and deviating from this path usually ends with you arriving in locations that have close to zero survival/progression chance as bruteforcing is no longer an option. And then we have the game's newfound love of storytelling.

La-Mulana 2 has more emphasis on story and talking with non-playable characters compared to its predecessor. From time to time, you will run into other NPCs in the wild, some of them being key characters that are there for narration reasons, and lots more who you can talk to by entering doors to their chambers. Some of these NPCs only offer various lore tidbits, but there are quite a number of them that have direct influences over the gameplay progression. Not only some of the game's puzzle solutions are bound to doing specific tasks and then talking to specific NPCs for one or multiple times, but the game also blocks access to certain parts of the map and only opens them up after reaching some of these NPCs. Some of the more important ones even send you messages every once in a while to explain how hazards work and tell you where you need to use which items. Coupled with the forced progression path at the beginning of the game, and all of the other changes, these make for a more controlled experience compared to the first game.
And all of this can underwhelm the fans of the previous installment, to the point I was seriously considering getting a refund due to how awful and streamlined the experience felt for me. All of these new design decisions go against the groundwork laid by the first game. No longer you are finding about things by yourself and no longer the hurdles that block the way to new areas are your wits and your equipment. Speaking of which...

Progression in La-Mulana 2 feels painfully slow and unrewarding, and you will probably be shocked (in a negative way) to find out how much stuff you have found on your own after a couple hours of adventuring.
After 6 hours in La-Mulana 1, half of my inventory was filled with items that each helped me progress further in the game. I was constantly finding new items to use and in turn getting access to new locations. Then I play La-Mulana 2 and after 8 hours of gameplay resulting in the discovery of 8 fast travel locations and slaying two bosses, I still feel like I have done nothing of value as my inventory is nearly empty. The game conveniently puts important items in your way instead of asking you to find them in the wild, and then it has the nerve to act stingy when it comes to rewarding you when you actually put in some effort. Many times you solve puzzles just to see pathways opening instead of getting a reward or beat minibosses/bosses to get items that you either don't need at the time or don't know what to do with them. To put a cherry on top of everything, many of the chests are now locked behind sigils instead of puzzles so you won't be rewarded for trying to attempt a later area earlier.

And that's just the changes to exploration. When it comes to combat, La-Mulana 2 is also not completely satisfactory. The improved controls do make for a nicer time going around and fighting with the enemies and bosses, but I do not understand the decision to reduce the invulnerability time. There are a lot of places in the game where you can get stunlocked by the enemies and traps. You get hit by an enemy, get knocked backwards as a result, then hit another enemy/projectile/trap and take another hit as the invulnerability time ends quickly. This is especially visible with the enemies who carry weapons that act like semi-automatic guns.
And then we have the bosses and minibosses who are boring and not fun to fight at all this time around. Many of the bosses require only the bare minimum of your platforming abilities. If you are especially attentive and lucky, you might even find flaws in their behavior and make some of them freeze in place, not moving at all and ready to take hits. They even have changed the way you face bosses, going from a near instant transition to bosses' arenas to making you wait for a couple seconds with nothing special happening.


Now, all of this is not to say the game is bad. La-Mulana 2 is a good game on its own. But when we take it as a SEQUEL and compare it to what came before, the changes are visible and disheartening. This is not more of what I strangely ended up loving... it's something familiar yet very different.
And I honestly don't know why the devs did this. Was it player feedback? Did they try to change their game to appeal to more people? Did they want to experiment and try a different design mentality for the franchise? Whatever the reason, I am not a fan of it... and I now have much desire to play the first game again instead of continuing this one.


A good game on its own, but a serious downgrade compared to the first game. It improves many things, but also changes the gameplay into something that feels more controlled and less rewarding.