Recent reviews by Spooky Boo~ky

This is the seventh DLC pack released for this game and oh boy, do I have a lot to say about it.

The first thing I'd like to talk about is the fact that this is one of the first dlc packs to include new playable campaigns in the single player. Yes, I said campaigns because it actually comes with two of them! The stories for both campaigns are pretty enjoyable with some nice character moments for Star Breaker, Sweet Breaker and a few others. The actual gameplay is just okay to me, but to be fair, that applies for pretty much all the campaigns. Playing against CPUs on preset boards and events just isn't very exciting compared to playing with actual people and the randomness that comes with that. I consider the campaigns a nice bonus more than anything and the only real reasons to play them are if you enjoy learning about the characters or you want the achievements and cosmetic items for beating them on higher difficulties. With all that said, let's talk about the characters now, starting with Sweet Breaker.

Sweet Breaker
Sweet Breaker has 6 HP, 0 ATK, 0 DEF, 0 EVD, and 6 REC. She has a pretty high amount of HP and neutral stats so you can use most cards with her pretty effectively and the only real flaw with her is their higher than average REC if she gets KO'd.
Sweet Breaker also has a passive ability where for each reverse card a player she battles is holding, she gains +1 to ATK, DEF, and EVD. There are only two ways for somebody to end up with reverse cards. The first is through the trap "Sealed Memories" which reverses the hand of the person that lands on it for 3 turns. The other way is through Sweet Breaker's hyper, "Melting Memories".

Melting Memories when activated will permanently reverse the cards that are currently in your opponents hands and shuffle them. One of the cards that was in their hand will also be discarded and replaced with a card from the deck (which will also be reversed). This hyper can be devastating to any character that relies on having specific cards in their hand for their game plan. They will also be under threat of being attacked by Sweet Breaker who will have higher stats against them until they get rid of all the reversed cards in their hand. Melting Memories is a pretty solid hyper overall, but it does have a few drawbacks. The minor one is the norma 3 requirement, which isn't too hard for Sweet Breaker to reach. The major drawback is the cost for activating it: 5 stars per card reversed. This can quickly drain you of stars if you use it when everybody has a full hand and you'd ideally want to circumvent the cost somehow if possible.

Sweet Breaker is a fine enough character that I don't have any issues with. Their neutral stat-line and versatile hyper means that you can play Sweet Breaker in a lot of different ways and have success with her. I think that they're worth your time if they sound interesting to you, but now we have to talk about the elephant in the room: Star Breaker.

Star Breaker
Let's start off with the stats as usual. Star Breaker has 5 HP, 2 ATK, 0 DEF, -1 EVD, and 5 REC. Having +2 ATK for base stats is a very powerful trait to have even today and Star Breaker gets to enjoy having a good HP stat and neutral DEF too so she's not as easy to KO as most +2 ATK characters are. The only weak point stat wise is the EVD, but Star Breaker can usually defend at least a few times in battle before having to rely on it and you won't need to rely on it at all if you KO your opponent before they attack! She seems like an amazing character so far, what could go wrong?

"Can only choose Wins norma." Those five words for her passive are so short and yet, are the main thing that completely ruins this character and makes Star Breaker one of the worst characters in the game. How can this be so detrimental when Star Breaker has such good stats for battling? Well it all comes down to the Stars norma and how much easier it is to achieve than the Wins norma is. Stars are much easier to acquire than wins are in this game. Everybody is constantly gaining stars even if they're not really interacting with other players. It can be totally feasible to just focus on gathering stars and avoiding confrontation with other players to win, and that is a big problem for Star Breaker.

Star Breaker can't afford to be passive because she's unable to win through gathering stars. All stars do for her is fund the costs of her cards, so she has to go on the aggressive constantly to try and get wins, but this usually doesn't work out for her for many reasons. For one, if people have played against Star Breaker before and know that she is going to try battling them, they're going to do their best to stay away from her and avoiding giving her the chance to battle. This issue is especially bad on larger boards where the homes are farther away from one another and it can make it feel impossible sometimes to get close enough to battle other players.

Another issue that Star Breaker can have is that she often suffers from success. This may sound weird given I already called her one of the worst characters, but it goes back to the issue of Stars norma again. Star Breaker is constantly gaining stars both passively and whenever she does KO something in battle and that can actually be a problem. In the games where Star Breaker is doing well, she becomes a walking piggy bank filled with stars just begging to be KO'd by somebody so that they can use those stars to get Stars norma and win the game.

Perhaps Star Breaker also has a busted hyper that can help h- No, it barely helps her at all. "Star Blasting Fuse" is a hyper that requires norma 3 and costs 30 stars and it places "Invisible Bomb"s on 3-5 random panels depending on the size of the board. Having a hyper that places traps randomly is already a very questionable design choice for a character that needs wins as much as Star Breaker, but what does the bombs actually do? Well they're invisible to everybody except the person that places them and when somebody lands on a bomb, they get reduced to 1 HP... and that's all that they do. They don't even do anything if somebody who is already at 1 HP lands on them, they get to waste your bomb for free and If you land on them, they just get defused too (why???).

So to get value out of Star Breaker's hyper you have the following things go right:
1. Be close enough to the person that set off the randomly placed bomb
2. Roll high enough to be able to reach them and start a battle
3. Have the opponent fail to evade or not use a card to survive

For having all those things go well, you get the privilege of... getting 2 wins and a bunch of stars you can't really use. The more realistic scenario is either the person who landed on the bomb is far away enough from everybody that being at 1 HP doesn't matter too much or somebody else will be nearby and KO them, getting a bunch of stars out of the crappy ass trap spamming hyper you spent 30 stars on instead. Even better is when the bombs end up on bad panels that are on side paths so nobody will want to land there and your hyper does basically nothing.

So for the downside of only being able to use Wins norma, you get a character that is one point better in DEF than Yuki and has a hyper that is somehow more situational than something like whatever the hell Tomomo has for a hyper. Why does this poor character have to get stuck with such an awful downside when she's barely any better than her fellow +2 ATK characters?

Star Breaker really has nothing going for her besides above average stats and that's a shame because she's such a cool character. I think the idea of a wins only character in a game full of star gatherers is good, but not in her current state. This character has needed a rework since the day she came out, but it never came. Safe to say, but I don't recommend getting this pack just for Star Breaker, she is truly awful.

I've seen early access demos with more content than this ""full"" game.

You have been able to purchase this game in early access for almost a year at this point and the only thing that the devs have added are more characters. Having more playable characters is definitely not a bad thing, but it is a problem when you only get to use them for maybe 15-30 minutes and then you've already beaten the game. That is not an exaggeration, the game really is that short and there has been no effort in making runs last longer.

If you're thinking that the rogue-like aspects will make those runs more exciting, then think again. The items that you can find are mostly just boring stat boosts or situational abilities that don't really change how you play any of the characters. There's barely any interesting rooms either, you'll only encounter rooms with generic layouts and enemies that you will all see by the end of your second run, there's two shops run by Nitori or Koakuma that lets you buy the boring stat boost items, and eventually you will encounter rooms for each boss. Every run you will fight Meiling, Patchouli, Sakuya, and Remilia in that order and they will be the same fights every time you encounter them with nothing to help spice them up.

After defeating all the bosses, all you get is a cliffhanger ending where you open a chest and get Flandre as a reward and the credits roll. That's it, you've seen everything the game has to offer. Oh sure, you could play through the game with a different character, but it will be the same shallow experience you just went through just with some different abilities and starting stats.

To say this game is underwhelming would be the understatement of the century. I really wish this game had more to offer because it looks very appealing visually and I can see the potential in it. Unfortunately, considering the full release update is going to be the last one to include characters and the developers are already working on another Touhou game here on Steam, I doubt it will ever get the content it desperately needs. Because of how barebones it is and the lackluster updates it's received, I cannot recommend getting this game at all.

This is the fifth DLC pack for this game and one that I feel pretty mixed on. We'll see why as I get into the characters.

Alte
Alte starts out as an unassuming character with a stat line of 5 HP 0 ATK -1 DEF +1 EVD and 5 REC. This is very similar to Hime from the base game, except for having 0 ATK rather than +1. This stat line is not very impressive to say the least and leads to Alte being both kinda easy to KO and lacking in attack power. She does have a few things to make up for this. For one, Alte actually gets two passive abilities to make use of. The first passive allows her to view a random battle card from the hand of her opponent when she is in battle. This can be pretty useful for deciding if she should play her own cards or not and it synergizes with the other passive she has.

Before we can talk about the next passive, we have to go over her hyper, Self-Destruct. Self-Destruct is an interesting card that can be played in battle. Rather than giving you some kind of boost to help with battles, Self-Destruct actually requires you to get KO'd in the battle you activate it for it to have any effect. If you do activate it successfully, the opponent will be KO'd and lose half their stars, Alte will not lose any stars or give any wins, and her second passive will activate. The second passive gives Alte a permanent +1 ATK for every successful Self-Destruct, up to a max of +3 ATK.

So despite having underwhelming stats, Alte has two pretty good passives and a very scary hyper. She seems pretty good overall right? Well, when things are going well for you, then yes, Alte can be pretty strong. Unfortunately, the games where things go off without a hitch are few and far between. One thing that is apparent is that Alte is very reliant on being able to get Self-Destruct to do anything noteworthy. It also doesn't help that Self-Destruct requires reaching Norma 3 before she can use it, leaving her vulnerable to being bullied early on in the game. So let's say you do get Self-Destruct and are at a high enough Norma level to use it. You still have to get into a battle where you have a realistic chance of being KO'd and a lot of the time that can be a pain.

The most annoying part about Alte is just how inconsistent they are because of how much you have to rely on RNG for the character to work. Unless you are at 1 HP, you are pretty much always subject to getting screwed by RNG whenever you use Self-Destruct. There were so many times where I was low on health and activated Self-Destruct only to roll high enough for defense or evade to survive. Other times I would battle somebody while I was at full health so I could lower my health to have a better chance of activating Self-Destruct only to get KO'd because they rolled high and my poor DEF stat made me roll too low to survive. That's just all the things you have to consider that could happen to maybe use Self-Destruct successfully ONCE.

Even if you do activate Self-Destruct, what now? Sure, you made someone lose half their stars and got an ATK boost, but that's not going to do anything to the other two players who are free to keep collecting stars since you still have to roll to revive before you can do anything else. Unless the person you blew up was noticeably ahead of everybody else, you haven't done anything to advance your own state in the game. It really sucks that Self-Destruct is so annoying to activate for so little immediate payout.

I really want to like Alte and their silly suicidal gameplay since it's so unique, but I just can't deal with how annoying she is to actually play as. I get that luck is a big part of the game, but having to constantly put so much faith into what both I and the opponent roll so that Alte can make an impact in the game will never stop being frustrating. I seriously can't recommend you get this character unless you REALLY like her gameplay.

Kyoko
Kyoko is a pretty extreme character stat wise. She has 5 HP -1 ATK +3 DEF -2 EVD and 5 REC. If there is one character you could call a "tank", it's Kyoko. Base +3 in a stat is a rare privilege only given to characters with special requirements to use them or characters that have a drawback to balance it and Kyoko falls into the latter. She cannot use the evade command whatsoever in battle. You probably weren't going to use it the majority of the time anyway with how bad it is, but it does mean that she is going to take at least 1 point of damage every time she battles.

To further aid in Kyoko's "tank" play style is her hyper, Crystal Barrier. Upon use, this hyper gives her 3 stacks of an effect that will automatically cancel any traps, battles, or drop panels at the cost of 1 stack and 1 HP. One nice thing about this hyper is that it's usable from the start of the game assuming you can pay the 20 star cost. This is a nice protection effect, but one of the main uses of it is to use the HP loss to KO yourself. The reason you would want to do this is that it will allow you to restore your HP after you revive and not lose your stars in a battle.

With that sky high DEF and a hyper that can let her take herself out, it can be pretty difficult to KO Kyoko a lot of the time. Thankfully, she does have a few weaknesses and one of them is the constant chip damage they will be forced to take from every battle. Because she can't evade at all, even -ATK characters will have no trouble constantly attacking her and whittling down her HP since Kyoko herself is not much of a threat in battle. The other noteworthy weakness is her lack of an ability to increase how quickly she gains stars. She can't usually KO anybody to make a comeback or gain stars, so if Kyoko does get KO'd in a game, it can be a struggle to get back into a winning position.

I would say that overall, Kyoko is definitely a strong character that is capable of surviving for a long time. She's not the most interesting character to play as, but she does one thing and does that thing really well. I can give her my recommendation even though she's not one of my favorites.

Conclusion
I hate to say it, but this is one of the first DLC packs I could say is worth skipping. Alte is just not very fun to play with how unreliable they are and while Kyoko is a pretty solid character in their own right, I find them more boring than anything. Don't let my opinion stop you if you think you can have fun with both of them. I wish I could give this a "mixed" recommendation instead, but I'll have to settle for a negative one.

This is the fourth DLC pack released for the game and it's back to looking at characters again. Let's see what they have to offer.

Krilalaris
Krila has a statline consisting of 6 HP 0 ATK 0 DEF -1 EVD and 5 Rec, making her pretty average overall besides their above average HP stat. The main thing of interest with her is her hyper card, Plushie Master. When activated, this hyper will place 3-5 traps randomly on the board depending on how many panels it has. These "Dance Long-Eared Beasts" traps will damage whoever lands on it (except the person who used the hyper) for 2 damage, give them a -2 ATK debuff until the end of their next battle, and cause the trap setter to gain 1 HP. An interesting thing about the gained HP is that it can actually allow you to go over your max HP. If enough people land on her traps, it's entirely possible for Krila to reach double digit amounts of HP. This extra HP is not considered max HP so once you lose it, it's gone for good until you gain more through your hyper.

The main weakness of Krila in my opinion is actually her hyper. It is completely random where your traps will end up on the board and if you're unlucky they can end up in spots that are easily avoided. Her hyper also isn't very threatening on it's own. Sure, the traps do a variety of things when people land on them, but they also don't help earn you any stars or wins unless you're able to capitalize on it. It's also possible for people to land on your traps intentionally when they're low on HP since it gives them a chance to revive with full health without much of a drawback (they still suffer from -2 ATK and giving you HP)

Overall, despite her hyper not having the sheer power of something like Saki's Big Bang Bell, Krila manages to have a niche as a more chaotic trap setter that can be surprisingly difficult to take down sometimes. With her high starting HP and ability to gain more HP and reduce other units ATK, she can afford to get into battles more often, albeit you should still try to play smart and avoid taking unnecessary risks. I think Krila is a pretty decent character to use and I can recommend her if you find their play style fun.

Kae
If you just took a look at her stats out of context, Kae looks like one of the weakest characters in the game. With 4 HP 0 ATK -1 DEF +1 EVD and 4 REC, she is one of the squishiest characters in the game. Even characters with 0 ATK will have no problems taking her out with a good roll. Thankfully, Kae has a pretty strong passive to make up for this. Whenever she is in battle, her negative DEF will increase their ATK by the same amount. She also gets another -1 DEF whenever she's the attacker, meaning that without any other boosts, she will have +1 or +2 ATK.

This is already pretty nice, but it gets interesting when you use certain cards. For example, if you use "I'm On Fire" you will actually be getting +2 ATK since the normally detrimental -1 DEF is boosting your ATK also. By far the best way to increase your ATK is with Kae's hyper, Blazing. Every unit within a 2 panel radius including yourself will receive +1 ATK and -1 DEF for 3 chapters. Unlike a lot of cards, this hyper can actually stack it's effect and also restore the duration back to 3 chapters if you use more copies of Blazing before it runs out. This easily turns Kae into one of the deadliest characters in the game if she gets the drop on you. They are even able to hit the stat cap of +9 for ATK if they draw particularly well.

It's not all sunshine and rainbows though. Kae already starts out being easy to KO and it only gets easier as their DEF drops. If she gets attacked or fails to KO her target, there is a extremely high chance that she will be KO'd herself. Despite this flaw, she is undeniable very strong even today and one of the best choices for a battle heavy play style. Kae easily earns my biggest recommendation so far.

Conclusion
Out of all the character packs so far, this is one of my personal favorites. Krila and Kae are not only capable of performing well, they're also very fun to play. This pack earns my recommendation with flying colors.

This is the third DLC pack released for this game and one of the first that doesn't add new characters. Instead, you get a variety of cards that you can use with any character after you acquire them ingame. To make things easier, I will list information about the cards and sort them from top to bottom, from cards generally useful to everybody to cards that are more niche and give my thoughts on them.

Norma: 2
Cost: 5 Stars
Boost (Max 1)
Look at the first 3 cards of the deck. If there are any hyper cards, take them. Return the rest of the cards to the deck in the same order.

A very short and sweet search effect and a staple for any hyper dependent characters. Even if you don't draw any hypers, you still gain knowledge of the next 3 cards that will be drawn and you can use this very early in the game thanks to the low norma and star requirements. You really can't go wrong packing this with any character.

Norma: 1
Cost: Current Norma x 5 Stars
Battle
End this battle. Attacker gains this card's cost. May only be used by the defender. If opponent plays a battle card, this effect is void.

So this is a pretty much a card for escaping from a battle that you are unlikely to win or to buy you a bit of time. A good time to use this would be against a character with a powerful boost hyper such as Suguri. There is unfortunately a chance for this to whiff if your opponent plays their own battle card, but at the very least they don't get the stars you paid for the cost (You do still lose those stars though). This is also a card that you could bring with any character, though I would be careful bringing it for a character that likes to battle.

Norma: 2
Cost: 10 Stars
Event (Max 1)
Effect Duration: 3 chapters
All panels other than the home panels become random panels.

The effect is pretty self explanatory, but there are a few good uses for it despite its random nature. This can be used when the boss is out so you don't have to worry about them for a couple turns and this card could also be used to deny other players from landing on stuff such as warp or movement panels. This is still very much an entirely RNG card despite those uses, so only bring it if you want to have some fun messing up the board.

Norma: 4
Cost: 20 Stars
Battle (Max 1)
Deal damage to attacker equal to their ATK - DEF (min. 1). Then end the battle. A KO from this damage does not count as a defeat. May only be used by the defender.

This is Tactical Retreat's more deadly cousin. Not only can this card deal damage and even KO your opponent, it also effectively whiffs any battle card that they might have played in that battle. I wouldn't recommend taking this with any character that relies on having high attack or a battle focused hyper, but for everyone else this can be a powerful defensive tool.

Norma: 3
Cost: 5 Stars
Boost
Choose a player. All hyper cards in your hand become the type that that player uses.

This is both a very silly and very powerful card in the right scenarios. It is effectively useless if you don't have at least 1 hyper card in your hand, but it could be worth holding onto depending on what other characters are in the game. This card is best brought for characters with more mediocre hypers since whatever you copy will likely be better and other people would be unlikely to choose your hyper as a target if they get mimic instead.

Norma: 4
Cost: 10 Stars
Boost
Effect Duration: 1 chapter
You may play cards without paying their cost. You may play 1 additional card this turn.

This card effectively makes every card you play for an entire turn free besides the 10 stars you pay to activate this. This means depending on your hand you could play some insane combos and not really lose anything if it goes wrong besides 10 stars and all the cards you used. It's best to pack this card in a deck full of expensive cards and hypers as it can be kinda underwhelming otherwise.

Norma: 3
Cost: 30 Stars
Boost
Stock Effect
Always roll 5 to move. After your turn, take 1 damage. Effect expires on KO.
If you suffer KO from this effect, pay Lvl x5 stars.

A very high risk, high reward card for getting around the board. Being able to have consistently high movement every turn in a game like this is very nice, but the drawbacks and cost can't be ignored. This card is best for high HP characters that will be able to abuse its effect for longer or if you really need to land on a specific panel such as a home.

Norma: 3
Cost: 20 Stars
Boost
Engage in battle with an enemy or enemies on your panel. Once these battles are over, your turn is over.

If you're getting battled by somebody who wants to follow behind you, you can play this card as a surprise attack and attempt to KO them instead or at the very least end up behind them. An interesting thing about this card is that you are able to play it despite having not having anybody else on your panel and it will skip your turn. Best to be brought with characters that are more offensive.

Norma: 2
Cost: 0
Trap (Max 1)
Player suffers 3 random encounters (the player attacks first).

This trap essentially forces the person who lands on it to fight three random battle panel enemies in a row. The effectiveness of this trap really depends on the stats and health of whoever lands on it and in the worst case, could give somebody 3 wins and some stars by KO'ing all the enemies before they get to attack. It's not a card I would rely on thanks to having to rely on battle RNG, but it can be nice for trap heavy or high attack characters to place down.

Norma: 1
Cost: 0
Trap
For 3 turns, all target's cards are reversed (target sees them face down, and other players can see their cards).

Unlike most traps, this card isn't immediately a threat to somebody who lands on it. While the knowledge of what's in somebody's hand is nice, it doesn't really mean much if you aren't able to take immediate advantage of it. Flipping cards upside isn't usually too devastating either if the person is paying attention and remembers what cards are in their hand. I would only recommend bringing this for Sweet Breaker and maybe one copy in a trap heavy deck if you really want to.

Norma: 3
Cost: 30 Stars
Event (Max 1)
All active players except the one who played this card must draw cards, paying 15 stars per card, up to their card maximum.

This is a very situational card that I struggle to come up with reasons for bringing. On one hand, you can make people lose up to 45 or even 60 stars if they have an empty hand. On the other hand, you are paying 30 stars minimum for an effect that will easily be nullified by anybody that is keeping their hands full of cards, and even if they're not, you're giving them more resources that could help them get those stars back. You don't even get to draw any cards yourself. The only real use of the card is to potentially deny somebody of a norma, but there are many other ways of doing that that also won't give the opponent cards to use against you. I cannot recommend this card outside of meme strategies.

Overall, I think the Mixed Booster Pack is very worthwhile to get. You get a lot of fun cards to use with your characters and outside of a few duds, the cards are generally pretty useful. I honestly think that this is one of the first DLCs you should get if you're considering buying any.

This is the second DLC released for this game and a pack with characters that I both enjoy. Do they hold up though? Let's find out.

Kyousuke
Kyousuke is very much a defense oriented character with a stat-line of 5 HP -1 ATK +2 DEF 0 EVD and 5 REC. He is what I would describe as a "tank" character in this game, using their high HP and DEF to survive as long as possible while gathering stars and cards. Unlike most tanky characters in this game, he doesn't really have any kind of noticeable drawbacks or passives that weaken him besides his low ATK, which is pretty common for tanky characters anyway. With their decently high HP stat, good DEF, and neutral EVD, Kyousuke is a very solid choice if you want a more adaptable tank to use, even if they don't have quite as much DEF or HP as his competition.

If it ended there they would already be pretty good, but we can't end off there without talking about their hyper: Cast Off. Cast Off has the very simple effect of swapping the base ATK and DEF of whoever uses it until they either get KO'd or use Cast Off again. What this means for Kyousuke is that he goes from being a tank to being a squishy bully character that tries to steal other players stars. This hyper can be a nice plan B for when Kyousuke falls behind in a game, but it's also very risky as your chances of being KO'd are much higher. The safest way to use the hyper would be to have another copy of it for when you do KO somebody or have some way to self KO yourself without losing stars, both of which are not always practical.

Kyousuke has stood the test of time very well in the game and I don't see that changing anytime soon. Even if you don't get your hyper card in a game, you still have a good chance of winning if you play smart and RNG is on your side. Let's see what Saki can bring to the table.

Saki
Right out of the gate, Saki does not have very impressive stats. She has 4 HP 0 ATK 0 DEF +1 EVD and 4 REC. Having an okay HP stat and relying on EVD, which can be notoriously unreliable leads to Saki being a pretty squishy character. Clearly she isn't designed for getting into battles so what does she do? Well that's where their hyper Big Bang Bell comes in. Big Bang Bell is a trap card that actually gets stronger the longer it's left on the field. It will initially cause 2 damage to whoever steps on it and anybody within a 2 panel-radius of the trap, but every 2 chapters this damage will go up by +1. If you do end up being KO'd by it, half of your stars will go to Saki.

Saki's entire game plan revolves around scaring people with this hyper. As soon as she hits Norma 3, any trap that she places on the field becomes much more intimidating to land on. She has numerous good spots that she can place traps too, such as on homes, on spaces where paths intersect, and even placing them on side paths to discourage people from taking them. Even if it's not a bell, there are still several traps that can be devastating to land on and with how uncommon trap cards are in general, odds are that there won't be any cards in the deck to help deal with the trap cards. If Saki places them on the main path of a board that you'll have to eventually travel through, there's a pretty good chance that you'll have no choice but to land on a trap if you're unlucky with your movement roll. That's not even including the fact that Saki can choose to run Path Blockers and now you have to worry about somebody using that card on you and forcing you to land on the next trap you move over.

For as strong as I made trap cards out to be, they're not the most reliable cards to use. Often times, the only traps you'll see are the ones Saki brings herself and that means everything that isn't Big Bang Bell has a chance to be drawn by other people and used against her. Saki is also very squishy as mentioned earlier which means even if she does KO somebody with her bell, she is still at risk of being KO'd herself and prone to bullying unless she can quickly end the game. Despite these flaws, I find Saki to be a very interesting character to try to make work. She doesn't have the most consistent play style, but when it works out you feel like a mastermind.

Despite how old this DLC is, both characters are pretty fun and have held up well despite how strong some of the more recent characters have been. I can highly recommend this character pack to anybody who's interested in a solid tank and/or a trap heavy play style.

I've decided to make reviews on these DLC packs to discuss my thoughts on them and how well they've held up to today in their current state.
What better place to start than the very first dlc, released more than 10 years ago? (wow where did the time go?)
Anyways, I'll start this review by talking about Syura.

Syura
Syura has 4 HP 0 ATK +1 DEF 0 EVD and 4 REC, making her pretty average in battle, but having a better than average recovery when compared to the rest of the cast. Things start being interesting when we take a look at her passive ability and hyper. If Syura enters a battle at 1 HP, she will be given a +1 in both ATK and EVD. This is a nice boost to help make her less of a sitting duck, but her real potential comes from her hyper, Beyond Hell. For every missing point of HP, Syura will get a +1 in every stat (except HP and REC). What initially looked like an easy KO for your opponent can suddenly become a +4 ATK monster that also has a pretty good chance of evading your attack thanks to having +4 EVD. This isn't even mentioning the fact her hyper is free and playable from the very start of the game thanks to being Norma 1.

I think the strongest part about Syura are the mind games that you're able to play on people thanks to the existence of her hyper. When Syura has cards in her hand, you have no idea whether or not that any of them could be her hyper and because she's able to use it any time she wants in battle, attacking her recklessly when she is low on HP can backfire very badly. This introduces some interesting risk and reward scenarios for both Syura and the opponent. Does the opponent risk attacking Syura when she's low on health or wait for a card that could help deal with Beyond Hell? If the opponent does attack and Syura isn't at 1 HP yet, does she use her hyper to have a better chance of surviving their attack now and get a chance to counter attack or risk saving her hyper for later when she may need it most?

Despite being a pretty simple character overall, I think Syura holds up very well in the modern day.
Now let's see if Nanako holds up as well.

Nanako
Nanako has 3 HP 0 ATK +2 DEF +1 EVD and 4 REC. What immediately stands out is that low HP stat combined with her high DEF. I think the idea is to use her like a psuedo-tank by using her DEF against high ATK rolls and using their EVD on lower rolls to preserve their HP. In practice this sounds good, but in my experience using her, it usually doesn't work out like that. With only 3 HP, even taking 1 point of damage feels pretty bad. Cards that can deal damage out of battle to Nanako are the bane of their existence. Those good defensive stats won't really count for much when she can be whittled down to 1 HP so easily. They're even prone to being KO'd from full health from certain characters hypers pretty early into the game. For example, starting from only Norma 3, Marc can target and KO Nanako from full HP using their hyper and there's almost nothing that she can do about it.

Now to be fair, having low HP isn't the end of the world. Her 4 REC means that even when she does get KO'd she won't be down for too long. For as much as they suffer from their low health, Nanako also benefits a lot from even weak sources of healing. A mere 1 HP heal from something like Saki's Cookie or landing on a home restores a third of their HP and can let them take advantage of their solid defensive stats for longer. Finally, she has one more trick up their sleeve, and that is their hyper: Deploy Bits. Starting from Norma 2 and at a cost of 10 stars, Nanako can use this card in battle and gain a massive total of +7 to their stats, but with a catch. The stats are randomly distributed between ATK, DEF, and EVD. This means you could end up with some statlines that either really help you out, or are useless to you at the moment you use the hyper. There is no way to influence what you get from the hyper and that makes it very unpredictable to both you and your opponent.

Unfortunately, I can't say that Nanako is a very good character nowadays. With her low HP becoming more and more of a drawback as new characters and cards are added and the unreliable nature of her gameplay, she is not a character I can recommend unless you are okay with the possibility of being KO'd a lot.

Despite being one of the oldest DLCs for the game and my mixed thoughts of Nanako, I think it holds up reasonably well. It's far from the best character pack, but the characters in it are easy to pick up and start playing with even if you're new to the game and overall I can recommend it.

This $7 piece of software really managed to clown on Nvidia and their hardware exclusive frame generation.

What can I say that hasn't already been said about this game already? The short version is that Sonic Generations is still as good as it was when it first released back in 2011 (albeit with changed dialogue and chao to collect in each level) and Shadow Generations is easily one of the best Sonic games in the series.

For the long version, I'll explain some of the things that I liked about Shadow Generations:

-Shadow Feels Great to Control
This is pretty subjective, but to me, this is one of the best controlling "boost-formula" games in the series. Shadow's movement on the ground and in the air just hits that perfect middle ground where it's not too floaty, nor too heavy. Playing this game after finishing Sonic Generations meant that I had to get adjusted to the new controls, but that took maybe half an hour at most. Even after obtaining the other abilities in the game, I still felt like I was in complete control of Shadow and that every mistake I made was my own fault rather than the game. If you don't like where some of the abilities are mapped, this game allows you to remap your controls to however you want and there are even a few other options to fine-tune how Shadow controls, such as the rate for how quickly they decelerate when you stop inputting movement.

-The Collectibles Are Fun to... Well Collect
The main collectible in this game are the keys that you can find hidden in the various levels and challenges throughout the game. These keys are used to open chests in the hub area that functions pretty similarly to an island from Sonic Frontier in that it's an open area that you can freely explore. You use the keys you acquire to open chests that are found in the hub area they contain a variety of goodies related to Shadow, such as concept art and music that come from different games in the series.

There are some other collectibles too, such as the diary pages from Gerald Robotnik that detail lore behind Shadow's creation and machine parts that you can collect to build a "rocket" (it will make more sense if you play the game). Overall, I really enjoyed hunting all these things down and seeing all this cool stuff related to Shadow. The only thing I can really complain about is that it can be a pain to find the last few things you're missing if you're trying to 100% complete the game as there's no kind of radar or hints for finding stuff.

-The Levels Are Excellent and Diverse
The game follows a similar structure to Sonic Generations where Act 1 consists of 3D (unlike that game, it doesn't switch to 2D at certain points) and Act 2 which consists of 2D gameplay. There are six levels and I find all of them to be very fun and not overstay their welcome (looking at you Planet Wisp...) You'll first begin the game on the Space Colony Ark, which plays very much like a more complex version of Sonic Generations thanks to Shadow's additional starting moves. Once you beat that level, the game follows a pattern of you unlocking new Doom Powers and then using those powers heavily in the next level. This not only gives you a chance to practice with the powers as you earn them, but also help diversify the gameplay so that no level feels the same as one another.

Rail Canyon is the next level and as the name suggests, features a ton of rails and usage of the Doom Spear (basically Chaos Spear that can lock on to five different targets at once before firing). After this level you'll also be introduced to challenge gates you will occasionally have to do in order to gain access to a boss fight, and these bosses are super cool, but it's better to experience them for yourself.

The next level is Kingdom Valley, which features lots of gimmicks such as creating grind rails made of wind or hitching a ride on an eagle and makes heavy use of the Doom Surf, an ability that automatically activates in water and lets you ride on some weird manta-ray looking thing. The level after this, Sunset Heights, doesn't have a unique power associated with it, but it does make plenty of use of everything you've learned so far and has got some cool set pieces. Once Shadow learns Doom Morph (an ability that lets you quickly traverse purple goop and slingshot across morph balls), they can go to Chaos Island, which as you would expect, makes heavy use of the Doom Morph.

The final stage is Radical Highway, which makes use of the strongest ability of them all: Doom Wing. You can basically consider this a super form for Shadow as it requires 50 rings before you can activate it and rings will slowly drain while active. It allows Shadow to glide through the air upon boosting while airborne, only being limited by their boost gauge and it's as powerful as it sounds. There are actually separate rankings for each level for having the wings enabled as it would make it far too easy to get an S rank while using them otherwise.

Anyways, Radical HIghway has several routes specific to the Doom Wing, but the stage is also great to play without the wings. If you really want a challenge, try getting an S rank on this stage without the wings. After this stage is done you get to fight the final boss, and they are a tough, but fair fight to end the game on.

-Conclusion
These are only some of the things that I really liked about the game. There are so many things I could talk about, but I can't do the game justice with just this small review of it. If you are a fan of the Sonic series at all or you enjoy a good platformer, I highly recommend this game. I actually feel sad that there's nothing else to complete in the game, which I rarely say about games nowadays, let alone a Sonic one. Please give this game a shot if you're on the fence about it, I promise you won't regret it.

Fantastic little movement shooter that's easy to pick up and also master. Even if you're new to this type of game, the controls are pretty simple to learn and you have plenty of open areas for you to practice as you're fighting the enemies. You'll quickly gain your main abilities such as the hoverboard and grapple, and you will gradually increase your options for movement as you collect perks, agility orbs, and new abilities.

Shooting is pretty fun too and there's a variety of weapons that each do different things. This game features bullet drop, which means you have to account for travel time when you're shooting enemies. Weapons such as pistols and smgs will travel slowly while something like a sniper rifle will be much faster. This means that if you want to be able to more accurately hit faster enemies, you're gonna have to get closer to them, which isn't an issue because you're able to move around so quickly and dodge any incoming fire.

Speaking of enemies, there's a decent variety of them. For your human enemies, you have your basic grunt enemies, marksmen that can easily land shots on you if you're not careful, enemies wearing jetpacks that like to shoot explosive projectiles at you, and enemies that also use a hoverboard and can fly through the air like you can. There are also these mech enemies that can take a lot more abuse than the human ones. There's a variety of them too, some of which absolutely tower over you.

There's plenty of collectibles to find too. There are these things called scans where you fight on different islands and each one has their own difficulty and line up of enemies. Completing these are you main way to get new weapons and perks. There's also a weapon mastery system where you can unlock new attachments and skins for guns by getting enough kills with them. I already mentioned the agility orbs earlier, but they serve to increase the amount of jumps you have and how many times you can grapple before you have to let it cool down. Most importantly of all, you can acquire different hats and turn this into a hat based shooter :).

I do have a couple of complaints about the game, but they're minor. Some of the perks you can acquire are pretty overpowered. One of the ones that I ended up abusing the most was probably "Market Gardener" (yes it's exactly what you think, tf2 fans). By simply launching yourself into the air using either wind tunnels or an explosive, you deal TRIPLE damage until you land again. Considering you have your own explosives and can get a power that lets you create your own wind tunnels, this means you pretty much always have access to triple damage on demand. Combine it with the "Tony Glock" perk (nice pun) which lets you regain ammo just by wallriding, and there's pretty much nothing stopping you from constantly spamming triple damage explosives down on your enemies. To be fair, you can unequip perks if you find they make stuff too easy and there's even perks to make the game more difficult, albeit, you can only acquire those after beating the final boss of the game.

Another thing I didn't really enjoy that much were the bosses. They're huge and they look really cool, but they don't really do anything besides move in a circle in the area you encounter them. Instead what you'll really be fighting are the enemies that are on the boss itself. To defeat the boss, you have to destroy a bunch of... energy cores I think they are? It sounds easy, but the sheer amount of enemies they spam at you during these fights pretty much force you to rush through them and if you jump off the boss at some point, such as to resupply on health, you have to catch up to the boss and fight through all the enemies again (although the cores you destroy will still be gone as long as you don't die). Every single boss in the game does some variation of this, but besides the final boss, I found them to be pretty annoying unfortunately.

Overall, if you're looking for a fun movement shooter that you can play solo or with friends (yes, this game has co-op!), I can highly recommend this one. It took me over 11 hours to 100% the current content and I enjoyed pretty much every moment of it. I really had a lot of fun combining the movement and shooting mechanics and seeing just how good I could get at that (breaking the game too is fun is moderation). I think the game is worth its asking price of $25, but if you're unsure, there's a demo you can try out to see if you like it or not.