Recent reviews by Em

This game needs a lot of tweaking before it's as solid as it's predecessor.
I would preferably love to leave a neutral review, but that isn't available.

1. The beginners area is way too difficult with a very disjointed learning curve for the main character. It feels like you are dying in ways that are way more frustrating than reasonable, often when you don't even know what you did wrong. I had a hard time getting the hang of the main characters abilities and how to play her because it was a confusing learning curve.
2. I play mainly on controller for accessibility reasons, and the controls between the games feels... not good. First game had an almost buttery smooth flow to it, but this has a more jagged flow, with way more button mashing that is ramping up too soon. Unsure if it has to do with the pre-checked aim assist, but it shouldn't be that much of a difference. Zagreus felt more controllable, while this character feels a bit too light, like there is no weight, it's easy to overshoot attacks. Despite very intentional joystick movements, shots miss, and no, the controller is fine. (DualShock) Needless to say, this game is not for hands that need warming up with steady scaled difficulty.
3. The boons seem mismatched to the level of difficulty ahead. As in, some enemies just eat away your health, and the boons offered don't make sense as a counter. I find most boons warrant an almost constant offensive strat, when some weapons and attacks seem more defensive. I find myself forced to play hyper-aggressive, because I don't find boons that encourage a more defensive style of play. While cheezing can be rewarding ocassionally, it shouldn't be something you rely on to clear an area as it feels unrewarding after some time, but you do it because there is no other presented clear way of winning.
4. The one mini boss with the black fart cloud is straight up not fun to play against. The massive shield and damage it does is just, nah. I find most shields are so buffed that even with upgraded boons I have little impact.
5. Sometimes things are thrown at you all at once and sometimes not at all. Makes it hard to feel like you are invested into the story. Art and VA is great though.

It's mostly accessibility for me that does it for this game, where small elements make it feel like the experience isn't quite as smooth, and you have to play to the absolute extreme. Go ahead and add that in, but make the difficulty more reasonable with an even ramping up. I don't want to go from a very easy room, to suddenly something that is essentially a road block that requires hand straining. I want a streamlined experience from this game that allows your hands to properly warm up, to then go for that mash. It doesn't quite do that as of now.

In the first few hours you will learn your tasks on the job and have plenty of lessons. After your first promotion you'll feel entitled and like you know it all, after you rank gold, you start gaining deeper dwarfdom and later levels are just pure alcoholism.

The Good:
+ Greek gods with greek bods.
+ Huge replay value.
+ The execution; voice acting, art and music is great.
+ Amazing handheld controllers, works with keyboard as well, but controller makes it better.
+ It's like Bastion, but better. I guess a bit of Isaac and Gungeon for added spice.

The Bad:
- Possible performance issues. There was some minor lag spikes.
- VSYNC can make this game look way worse visually.

The Meh:
- Sometimes hard to figure out combos for late-game experience.

The Good:
+ They paired with cat charities, and that is so wholesome (Nebraska Humane Society & Cats Protection).
+ The cat rig looks real, and petable.
+ Great fusion of cyberpunk & solarpunk aesthetics.
+ Intuitive gameplay! Best played blind. Live-and-learn type.
+ Great case of "Show don't tell".
+ Explore like a cat, find secrets like a cat.
+ Works with both keyboard and controller, I've only played with controller thus far.
+ Music is partially dynamic and beautiful.
+ Makes you want to pet cats.

The Bad:
- Possible performance issues. There was some minor lag spikes.
- The night club has horrendous frame drop.
- The night club can cause issues with epilepsy/light induced migraines.
- There is issues with clipping in the slums, I somehow fell through the floor at the tech/hacker character and actors started taking default pose/froze.
- VSYNC can make this game look way worse visually.

The Meh:
- It felt a bit short, but it has replay value.

The Good:
+ Great case of "Show don't tell". "Viewer discretion is advised", if you don't like heavy stories.
+ Works with both keyboard and controller, I've only played with controller thus far.
+ Easy to 100% if you want such.
+ Music is partially dynamic and gorgeously crafted.

The Bad:
- Possible performance issues? There was some minor lag spikes, perhaps tied to auto-saving. Only brief moments.
- Resolution and tabbing out messes with my monitor and makes the game unresponsive.

The Meh:
~ The graphics are so-so, the imaginative design makes up for it.
~ About 3 hours of game-play, less if you use guides. Go in blind and avoid hints for maximum enjoyment in curious exploring and thinking.
~ Not innovative in platforming, but uses what already exists to create it's own magical spice.

The controls are very unbalanced. If you want to play this game, don't use joystick controllers, this game demands a D-pad or keyboard. The slightest wrong nudge of the stick makes this game misfire input, even if it's by a few degrees and not a direct downward turn, aiming side to side will trigger the response.

The visual clutter makes the character hard to see and due to the bright graphics, makes my eyes hurt to play for a long time. Anyone that has migraine triggered by light should stay away from this game.

DO NOT BUY THIS GAME IF YOU HAVE AUDIO SPECIFIC SENSORY SENSITIVITIES. THE VOLUME MIXING IS BROKEN AND ADJUSTING THE SLIDERS WILL NOT SOLVE IT.

1st game: Has actor loading issues, last world maps don't load properly. Not worth playing to finish.
2nd game: Issues with actor loading, unresponsiveness. The 2nd boss of the game is buggy and can be broken by spinning in circles, it is way harder than the last boss of the game.
3rd game: Agent 9s map is broken with volume mixing, the "ambient noises" override dialogue and is painful to listen to. Framerate issues and sluggish performance.

Does not play well with a controller, all games are laggy and suffer frame-rate drops, even on low setting. Instead of polishing animations (see majoras mask giant boss battle animations as an example) and freshening up the games, old animations that feel outdated are used leaving a sloppy impression. Some mechanics feel copy-pasted and there are multiple maps that have visible holes in the ground where the skybox can be seen. Spare yourself money and time, buy a different game that isn't just a HD mod of an outdated game.

Much like problem solving doesn't make sense in fairy tales logically, this game asks you to think differently about solving it's problems.

+ Hilarious dialogues, both in conversation and idle.
+ Has an emotionally impactful music score, maybe even dynamic.
+ Art-style gives off those 90-vibes cartoons, with equally comedic cutscenes/events that feels like Monty Python at times.
+ First chapter has surprisingly large amount of content for being free.
- Terrible controller support. Reverting Y-axis solves some issues, some keys don't register correctly. Can smoothly transition between controller and keyboard.
- Encountered some game breaking bugs, like endless loading loop requiring to reload the game and controller keys not picking up correctly.

Don't get this game because you desire perfection, get this game because you can see the art in the imperfection.

• Balances it's art style somewhere between vaporwave / synthwave aesthetic, sometimes borrowing from future funk albums.
+ Good soundtrack, very nice picks of tracks from the vaporwave genre.
+ Very interesting way of delivering it's story - the "easy way" feels sort of like collecting coins in some Mario game, the "hard way" is mildly grindy and requires patience.
+ Has at least a must to play through twice for completionists.
+ There is just so many layers and jokes in here that it sometimes becomes an "aha"-moment hours later of something I have seen. Yet some things are so simple. It's funny how this game balances between being artful, memes and a social commentary with this lax acceptance to it be how it be.
~ I'd like achievements for this game, but at the same time it feels just as rewarding without them.
~ Keyboard and mouse has okay input, it's probably by design that this game mostly plays like an old MMO.
- Controller support exists, but it's impossible to use an Xbox Controller to play this game. It's not programmed correctly.
- Very many bright lights, not for people prone to seizures.

Closing words: Errant Signals review on youtube opened me up to this game, didn't expect to like it as much as I did. It will probably stick with me as one of those games that leaves a mark after you are done playing it.

Are you tired of starving alone? They say the more, the merrier except now you are all hungrier. Excellent game to play with friends.

+ Great controller support. (Some mods even enhance this)
+ Great music score with adaptive sounds.
+ Is actually challenging.