Recent reviews by Karey Deary is Dependable

As much as I want to keep playing, I'll refund the game as this is a really barebones PC port.
The biggest issues are:
1. Missing mouse sensitivity adjustment for both unscoped and scoped in.
2. Press to aim / Hold to aim toggle setting is not available.
3. Almost no graphics settings. The game is always running at 60 fps, even with vsync enabled on a high refresh rate monitor. It's a unity engine issue that has to be resolved by the developers, should they choose to. There's no way to achieve a high refresh rate experience normally without some sort of external frame gen option. Even then, that's not ideal.

I would like to support the game if the above issues are resolved.
The protagonist is hot, clothing damage is a nice inclusion. (Could use more though.) The gameplay can be fun at times. The gameplay is smooth, but the overall feel is dragged down by the lack of mouse options and the locked 60 fps experience. I hope the PC port can be improved in the future. Should that day come, I will gladly buy it again.

The gameplay loop is a little boring, but there's a lot of content. Every single form can be used in all the scenes, that's pretty awesome. And unlike the developer's previous game, the variety is much better. There's a better balance between tentacles vs regular stuff.

I'm reviewing this game as a day 1 player who played this using steam remote play together for a 2 player experience, played at the highest difficulty (Challenger).

Let's start with gameplay, it's a metroidvania where progression is tied to one sub weapon and level ups. Where essentially you're locked out of areas until you collect enough bones from the map. Traditionally, metroidvania titles reward progression with abilities that help to traverse or bypass obstacles after reaching a certain part of the map. Here however, you're just heading towards checkpoints, gathering bones and returning to get more jumps, air dashes and the occasional ability to help traversal. There's no excitement when you are finally able to explore more of the map, since there's no abilities to be found on the map itself, there's just bones, potions and standard sub weapons.

Combat is barely in the game. I'd say like 20% of the game is actually dedicated to fighting enemies, the other 80% is split between 2 things: Backtracking through previously explored areas with minimal enemy variety. (You will see the same goblin sprite at the start and end of the game.) And inventory management hell where you and your friend take turns cleaning out the inventory because the game doesn't allow multiple selections when it comes to discarding items. And upgrading items is tedious as every item looks the same in the backpack. An item with 4 affixes looks COMPLETELY identical to one with nothing on it. Even after they updated the UI, the same issue persists as none of it is reflected on the item icon itself in the backpack.

I'm mentioning this because how often you upgrade and discard sub weapons in this game. The UI design is horrendous in this game. It's ripped straight from the first game with barely any thought put into it. It does the bare minimal in providing information (There was a period where they never mentioned you could toggle affix descriptions with a button, it has been patched since then) and it's just TEDIOUS to use. Speaking of sub weapons, the variety is incredibly lacking compared to the first game. You get a few archtypes for each character and you just get better versions of those same archtypes throughout the entire playthrough.

The map was half functional before the update, for completionists trying to get the true ending. You had to effectively guess which areas you missed bones in because the map did not track this. Half of the game's flaws can be attributed to the UI designer and programmer failing to make a functional and intuitive UI.

For the Boss fights, I enjoyed them until we realised we could just use items endlessly during them, effectively taking out any sort of challenge the bosses could have had. And other than 1 or 2 fights, none of them really seem to be interested in taking advantage of the 2 players present. It's almost as if they never intended this to be a 2 player game.

This also applies to the stages and free roam. There will be many times the 2nd player cannot be revived due to the player dying in an area where the other player cannot reach. Checkpoints and restore points do not bring the dead character back. Instead, we have to quit to title in order for the dead player to be restored. The game just doesn't seem to be built around 2 players despite using the same engine as the previous game. In which having 2 players in that game made a huge difference in how the game is approached.

Along with all the above flaws, this is a rushed game full of missing content and before the update, the game occasionally crashed for no reason. It took about a month for the update to release, by that time we were already almost done with the game.

A new boss rush was added where you cannot skip the intro dialogue and it's filled with recycled bosses from the first game. There is an NPC that is supposed to enable online coop, but currently does absolutely nothing at the time of writing this review.

This game should've been a classic castlevania.

Got jebaited into playing a horror game, still liked it though. Other than a few cheap jumpscares, it did genuinely terrify me in some sections. The non horror parts mostly consist of easy mini games, requiring little effort to beat thankfully.

The story is engaging, though the player character really is a self insert. I still liked most of it, just wish there was a bit more... The first person animations are well made and the voice acting is good. Character designs are top notch, loved short hair Mita and Cappie especially.

The game runs fantastic, didn't experience any crashes or bugs. The game has a very vibrant artstyle, and it can get very NOT vibrant when the horror parts creep in. It's a good game, enough said. Just have to wait for the sandbox mode to be added, I'll update the review when that happens.

Once is an inspiration, twice is an obligation.

I'll start this review by saying the 1st game is probably my favourite game of all time. Almost everything I mentioned in that review applies to this, but not all of it. I also used a PC/Switch controller to play as I believe it is the better control scheme, just like the 1st game. And just like the 1st game, they have to reuse certain jokes and character gimmicks because they had to since they did it in the first game. So even though it's been roughly 5 years since I last played, I still remember and laughed at the recycled jokes that have new material now.

What's not funny is most of the 1st game's cast is barely involved in the story. Unlike in the 1st game, most of them are just hanging around, not involved in the story. I'm questioning why they are even in this game, but once again, the line at the beginning of the review kept creeping back into my mind as I played. The designers of the new cast of characters in this game seem to have forgotten that while the character designs in the 1st game are colourful, they still looked like how most humans look in real life. We now have big headed but short scientist, a giant deformed man in a animal mascot costume and a man with a square head. One of those has a reason to look the way they do, the other 2 are just designed that way. It's incredibly distracting. While thankfully, there are normal looking cast members in this installment, can't say I find them very interesting.

One of my favourite things to do in these games are to interact with the items in the various locations to see the funny banter between characters regarding the inspected item. Yet, I can't help but feel they didn't care as much this time around. The new areas and new characters rarely seem to bother giving a remark about the many items just stuffed into the area. Many times I'm just clicking everything hoping to see a scene but many times I'm left hanging. And yet, in the areas that are recycled from the 1st game, I'm having fun seeing the recycled interactions and jokes from familiar places that always had a reoccurring gag. It's almost as if they didn't have much to add in the new areas and just gave up. Like they said in game: "You don't have to say anything if you don't have anything to talk about." While true, it just feels like I'm wasting my time clicking all the items in this game, almost like an obligation instead of something fun to do while revisiting a new area.

What I also liked about the 1st game is that it's very linear, you won't ever get stuck. Somehow they screwed that up this time. The game feels like it hasn't been play tested, during certain parts of the game they give out these fill in the blank questions that are seemingly designed to block the players from advancing the story. And it refuses to let me proceed unless I give them the exact answer they are looking for. The game thinks they have given you enough hints to comfortably answer them, but they have clearly not. When I looked up the answers online, my only thought was: "I would've never figured this out." Because that's what I want in my games, being asked to solve ridiculous puzzles that I don't think are even fair. What happened to my linear experience? I'm sorry I'm not a genius, so I have to ruin my immersion to look up a walkthrough.

Now about that story, I enjoyed almost half of it. While I hated the other half. And most of it is due to the new cast of characters, more specifically the new team of Ryuki and Tama. These 2 are completely useless together and are not enjoyable to watch. Compared to the amazing pair that Date and Aiba were in the previous game, it's such a downgrade to be forced to sit through the new pair's investigations. Ryuki is a generic shounen protagonist. There's hardly anything to note about him except that he is annoying, not a great detective, and certainly isn't funny. He is clearly unfit for the investigation yet he's still on the case. He's constantly having delusions and passes out frequently. Clearly he isn't fit for duty, yet everyone around him seems to call him a genius or something.

His partner is no better. Tama, the new Ai Ball AI partner, is an assistant/consultant. She barely fulfills either of those roles. For someone that looks like a dominatrix, her personality is of a massive pushover that allows Ryuki free reign to do whatever, despite how terrible of an idea that is. Her personality makes no sense, sometimes she bosses Ryuki around by shouting at him, rudely mind you. Yet when the going gets tough, she just rolls over. As an AI assistant, she somehow is of no help in warding off or confirming what is real or delusion despite being in his left eye. It's almost as if she doesn't even exist sometimes.

I genuinely hated most of their segments, and the quality of writing in their routes are just bad. Inept duo aside, their investigation feels strangely bloated with horribly bland Somniums. There are exceptions but most of them felt really bland this time around. A lot of the joke choices don't give any funny results, instead we are reprimanded for not choosing the obvious answers. So much for a dream world. And the somnium design feels like they have gotten worse in some cases. A lot of them actively try to fail you right at the end, and if you spend too much time early on, you basically had to restart right at the end. They give out hints that eat up time, use them enough times and you were going to lose either way, so you had to restart.

It also extends to the writing of the mystery, the contrivances they come up with to block technology like GPS tracking, voice/video calls and cloud saving investigation data is maddening. It's almost as if everybody in that world actively chooses to not charge their phones and turn off their GPS so nobody can find them in an emergency. To be fair, the 1st game did this sometimes, but it feels so much more commonplace here. By the end of the Ryuki route, I started to question why I even liked the 1st game, it's that bad.

And yet, when I arrived at the Mizuki route, things changed. I really appreciated the dynamic between Mizuki and Aiba. They're fun to be around, Mizuki retains her super human strength and her personality is pretty much the same as before, very straight forward and gung ho about handling situations. Aiba returns and she's great! She's really useful and she's surprisingly thoughtful at times. It almost feels like a different writing team was responsible for their route. Most of the somniums for Mizuki's route feels a lot more creative and fun to play through. I was getting more banter when I checked items in areas. And in some of the somniums, the joke options in somniums yielded more funny outcomes. It reminded me of why I loved the 1st game, except it's just worse this time. I will say I enjoyed most of her route but at this point, it's already a worse game than the 1st one. There's no meaning in me recommending this game.

It's more expensive than the 1st game, has worse writing, a lesser cast of side characters and main characters that are just not as interesting or funny as Date and Aiba, the 1st game's pairing. It has forced fill in the blank segments that are designed to stumble player progress. It introduced a difficulty slider for QTEs and Somniums because they didn't want casual players to be stuck, yet didn't bother giving better hints for all the quizzes and fill in the blank questions. Even though it's been 5 years since my play through of the 1st game, there's this sense of deja vu as I'm constantly revisiting these areas from the 1st game. And with how few new areas there are, it just feels like I'm going back and forth in the same few areas. There's simply not enough new content to make this game feel like a sequel, despite the new mystery and cast.

Great scenes, would not play through it normally though. The gameplay is pretty tedious, thankfully you can just unlock everything in the options at the start.

Enemies have so much health, the shop refreshes everytime you lose/win and there's no reliable way to get money. Coupled with the card game RNG, you're destined to lose most of the time.

It's an open world movement shooter with a hookshot, double jumps and a surfboard that ignores physics and climbs walls. All of that somehow combines to make one of the most insane fps games I've ever played. The freedom of movement really allows your skills to shine, you'll easily find yourself doing things you aren't even aware you're capable of. You're essentially playing a 2d action game character in 3d is how I would describe it.

The game runs almost flawlessly at high refresh rates, making it a buttery smooth game to play. The graphics are simple but they get the job done, the animations on enemies look kinda funky though. Though you're not likely to see much of it as you're speeding past them on your surf board, desperately trying to avoid their gunfire.

Enemy variety is decent, you have the regular grunts, jet pack guys, mechs, a bigger mech and a gun ship. The gradual escalation of enemy types really help to challenge the player's insane movement kit. You won't find many enemies that can handle your ridiculous movement, but if you get sloppy you'll find yourself dying quite a lot on hard. It remains challenging throughout even as you unlock more movement options and weapons to further increase how ridiculous you can be.

I have to mention some of the map and arena terrain, as they really help distinguish fights from one another. Fights can take place anywhere from massive flat lands to tight corridors, to wacky structures that allow for some really fun monkey business as you leap from place to place. It being open world doesn't stop it from trying to inject some really unique levels to spice things up from time to time. And I really appreciate the variety the game has.

However I have to say, I didn't enjoy most of the boss fights. They are located in MASSIVE arenas that take FOREVER to traverse. You're just holding shift the entire time while you're waiting or praying that the boss starts in a location so you don't have to chase it down in the massive arena. And if you die, you have to chase it all over again. And every boss is the same concept, a giant super weapon with multiple weak spots, littered with grunt units and turrets. There is variety in how they present these bosses, some are focused on horizontal movement, some are in the air, etc. However, that really doesn't change how samey they feel.

To sum it up, if you love fps shooters, you'll love Echo Point Nova. It feels like a natural evolution of the genre, giving players the freedom of movement they didn't even know they could have. Soaring and flying through the skies through the use of hookshots, powers and your surfboard, there are few games that allow for this much freedom in the air.

The game has not received a patch it was meant to receive, and has been pretty much abandoned. Any issues in the game will never be fixed. Using a controller causes the mouse cursor to remain on screen for whatever reason, when the first game didn't have this issue. And the game looks worse than the first game somehow.

It's playable, but it's annoying at the same time.

Fun game, it plays like mega man. There's no stages, just choose a boss and fight. Use your hypno gun to stun them and do your thing, repeat and see the next scenes until you drain their health bar completely. Simple premise but well executed. Shoot, jump and dodge your way to seeing those juicy animations. Easily the best part of the game, it's very smooth to play and dodging feels very responsive. However, I do some nitpicks.

Filling the bar doesn't automatically mean they get stunned, they have to finish their long attack patterns before they are allowed to be stunned. It's really frustrating to see a full stun bar and the bosses start performing what feels like their minute long attack sequence. The later bosses especially, a lot of the harder bosses turn into waiting games until you can finally score some hits on them.

They're not as fun to fight compared to the earlier bosses, where it's all about the tight timings trying to score a hit while they attack you. It felt like you were rewarded when you played aggressively. The later bosses don't feel that way for the most part.

The health gating on the bosses during the scenes are annoying as well. I swear it's not possible to fully drain a part of their health bar. So you have to waste time trying to fill up another stun bar, just to drain that tiny bit of their health bar to proceed to the next HP segment. Maybe I'm just not spamming hard enough? Who knows.

And as a personal nitpick of mine. As expected, the robot girl Tam gets the worst scenes imho. I was looking forward to her the most, but her scenes sucked. I'll still recommend the game because the other girls have pretty good scenes, but I'm still bummed out. (The dragon princess had the best scenes.)

Keyboard and Mouse controls are lacking, the mouse control to aim the conical lock on is pretty much busted. So I'd advise using a controller to play, it's much better.

The game feels like an arcade game, something you play through in one sitting. And that's perfectly fine, I had fun. The story doesn't take itself too seriously, but it does attempt to have emotional weight to it's more serious scenes. Though it quickly goes back to the light hearted banter between the characters. The story's pacing is lightning fast, but it still manages to work for the most part, it's just trying to read the story while everything's happening is a little tough on your 1st playthrough.

Still, I appreciate the effort to include a story in the first place. Everyone's voice acted, and there's a few cutscenes near the start and end of the game to open and close out the story.

Gameplay wise, basically it's a shoot em up except you're in a mech that has a sword in addition to bullet spam. You can slash the crap out of anything, and dash into enemies without worrying about touch damage. And you have a special attack that either functions as a projectile shield or can be used for a special attack where the mech lunges at enemies using an omnislash.

It'll take a bit to learn, but once you get the hang of it, it becomes really natural to control. The game runs great too, very smooth 60 fps.