Recent reviews by Farkus

This game is obviously Mega Man inspired, but for me, it has surpassed all of the Mega Man games I have played.

One of the best games I have played in the last year. The level of polish on almost everything is top notch. The visuals are beautiful, the sound design is crisp and satisfying, the music is top notch, and the gameplay is the best of it all. There is nothing more satisfying than dismantling a boss with a long sequence of parries. There are also a lot of nice quality of life features. For example, when you beat the game, reloading your save will bring you before the decision point of the story allowing you to get both endings on the same file. The story and characters are excellent. When getting the true ending, I teared up a bit with how good it was.

There is one major warning I do have to give to all players trying out this game. The final boss is the most obscene difficulty spike I have ever experienced in a game. While a pretty fun boss after you learn it, but nothing in the game will prepare you for it. And on top of that, some of the attacks' hitboxes are just criminal. This challenge is more on the level of an optional superboss than a mandatory fight.

But if you stick through, you will get a very satisfying ending. In summary, near perfect game, but please fix those hitboxes.

Edit: Coming back to this game after a few more playthroughs and I have to say, this game is a masterpiece. Get this game, you owe it to yourself. It is genuinely criminal that this game did not get a nomination at the game awards.

Reworking my review to make it less wordy and hopefully more clear. This Smash clone makes the same issue all other Smash clones I have played have. It caters heavily to the competitive community and offers nothing for casual players.

Unless you can find other casuals who want to play a Smash clone without the recognizable fighters or any of the fun extras like items, stage hazards, final smashes, and extra game modes, your only real options to play are online (where after only 1 week all of the casual players have dropped the game so you will only fight competitive players.) Or a very bare bone arcade mode which is basically just beating up on computers with one target test stage.

The core game is solid. The characters feel great to move around with, the sound effects on the characters are good, and the visuals are quite nice, but there is so little content for you here if you aren't a competitive player. And to cap it all off, this game is plagued with one of the most toxic communities I have ever encountered for a game.

TLDR; unless you are a hardcore Smash sweat, there is nothing here for you in this game.

I really wish there was a mixed feelings option for review, because neither recommending nor not recommending the DLC really summarizes my feelings. Also, this review will likely change as patches come out and I play it more.

This DLC is already batting from behind for me because I just do not like open world games, but even disregarding that, this DLC is very frustrating. I feel like the devs are pushing too much for difficulty that they are forgetting to make sure that the encounters are well balanced and well designed.

Balance is the first thing you are going to lose in an open world game, but the excess of super agile enemies that can burn down your HP bar in seconds get quite annoying when you have to tackle them in large ganks. Also, this game has so many enemies with Pontiff Sullyvahn levels of aggression while having tons of poise. There are just way too many horned warrior and smithblade cirque enemies.

The scadutree blessing system also isn't great. While I get the intention behind it, they become more of a chore to go collect on subsequent playthroughs.

Additionally, some of the enemies are just slogs to fight. The furnace golems for example. They aren't even hard, you can beat them while barely paying attention, but they just take so long to fight. Either you are just chipping away at their legs for an hour or you are waiting for them to slowly trudge over into range for you to throw fire pots in them. (And God forbid you run out of fire pots mid fight because you cant craft items mid combat.)

There is also a lot of recycled enemies that just don't need to be there. Did we really need 3 ghostflame dragons? Or another deathrite bird? Or the lion rematch that they decided to spice up by throwing in a bunch of basilisks. (Who TF thought that would make the fight better?)

A lot of the flaws are actually the same, or evolved from issues that a lot of people had in DS2. So its kinda puzzling how this DLC and game in a broader sense is given more of a free pass than DS2. Similar issues with poor enemy placement and design, similar issues with recycled and gank bosses. The base game even brought back the frigid outskirts. And of course, the push for difficulty and cheap shots over well balanced and thoughtful design.

(Also, I couldn't figure out where to put it, but please let us open the map in combat, even if we can't warp. I just want to see where I am going, and some random dragonfly preventing that is maddening.)

After a few more playthroughs, I have become more positive on the DLC. A lot of my issues are still not resolved, but I do think I can recommend this DLC. But I hope FromSoft will learn from their mistakes on this DLC.

A pretty solid game! The controls are quite tight, the visuals are quite nice, and the sound track is great. I do wish the game was a bit longer, but everything in the game felt excellent. I look forward to trying out the sequel.

Coming back to my review after the finishing the game I want to update a few things. First of all, it is beginning to look like the penultimate boss may have an issue with damage calculation because nothing I did to upgrade my damage from the base pick and boots combo. So I will update my review that it was a bug that will be patched and not a design decision.

All in all, I would say that this was a very fun game. The visuals are beautiful and harken back to the Oracle Zelda games which is an art style I like quite a lot. That being said, the text could maybe be updated a bit as it was kinda hard to read.

The gameplay is quite fun. It feels like a nonstop stream of Zelda dungeons which makes for a pretty fast paced game that is hard to step away from. The game could maybe use a map, but the dungeons aren't so confusing that it is a huge issue.

I really like the leaping charge that you can use to cross gaps. You can also use it to jump over some walls which feels unintentional, but is also really fun speed runner tech so I hope it doesn't get removed.

The story is a bit confusing, but apparently this game has a prequel, so maybe I should have played that first lol. But I do quite like the characters and the game does a good job really making everyone feel like a team.

This game is a nice little hidden gem. Its not too long, but also not too expensive and the quality you get is top notch. I can happily recommend the game to anyone with a few bucks to spare.

I am still not sure what you would call this genre of game, but Stardew Valley is by far my favorite. This game is packed with content, details, and charm. This is one of my easiest recommendations.

Momodora is one of my favorite metroidvanias, and this one knocks it out of the park again. The combat, exploration, and platforming are all on point. The style and music for this game is great and the game just feels really good to control. The boss fights are some of the most fun in the genere as well. Also, one thing I especially want to highlight is that this is one of the few metroidvanias that doesn't give bosses contact damage by default. Looking forward to the next game in the series.

My thoughts on this game so far are mostly positive. Overall I am having fun with the game. I will update my review as I play through and also as more changes are released. But I want to post it now to leave feedback. The bosses and combat are the highlight of the game for me. This is where the game shines the most.

I am editing my review as the game has updated and my biggest problems have been resolved. I am happy to see that the developers have listened to the players and even more happy that I can unreservedly recommend this game!

Easily one of the best soulslikes I have ever played. The music and art style are gorgeous. The story and themes are super engaging, and there are so many small details and references in the game. The combat is satisfying and the movement feels really fluid. Not to mention the game runs beautifully for me. This game is the first soulslike that isn't made by From Software that I can wholeheartedly recommend without an asterisk. The game had some balance issues that made me hesitant to recommend the game to anyone who isn't a hardcore souls fan, but with the new patch that really isn't an issue anymore.

If there is one thing I could nitpick about the game, its that a lot of cool gear isn't available until the end of the game and since the game is so linear, there is no way to get the gear early. That means if there is a cool weapon you want to do a run with, but its in the endgame, you need to do the run in NG+ (which is a huge difficulty spike). Due to the linear nature of the game, there isn't really an elegant solution to this issue though. However, this is worth thinking about for future titles (which I will be excitedly looking forward to).