Recent reviews by H1

Hocus Pocus uses its cute graphics and storytelling to make for a smooth ride through the game's atmosphere spread out across extremely simplistic combat. All you have to do is pay attention!

Everything the player picks up in the levels is laid out without ambiguity and with clear indication-- nothing's hard to find unless it's supposed to be. The feedback when enemies take damage is very clear and the 'boom' when they blow up is satisfying, especially during White Potion segments. Certain parts of levels are set up so that the player is meant to charge through while taking damage; the rest involves casually jumping around back and forth while avoiding getting hit. Once you get a feel for the type of game this is, the levels are extremely easy to 'read' and understand what you're supposed to do before it comes up on-screen. Set the gameplay speed to fastest and play on Hard, and it'll be well worth it.

If MultiVersus were a flat $40 with all Fighters and cosmetics already included and PvE being playable without connection to always-online servers it would be a definite thumbs up from me.

Major Pros:

- All characters' movesets are unique, allowing for the fun of learning and min-maxing combo possibilities with different characters repeatedly. No echo fighters here!

- Characters' moves and dialogue are in-character and lore-accurate. This is important to enjoying the character designs!

Minor Pros:

- The game has a minimalist control scheme with the same button combinations used to do different moves on different characters. I dread Mortal Kombat-style combo string memorization being part of a game's skill aspect so this is a huge deal for me... might not be for you.

- You'll never run out of different cosmetics in the game to try on, assuming you can grind and/or pay for them all...

some criticisms:

- The game itself does no job whatsoever of showing new players the core gameplay loop, much less specific moves, or how to chain them. It isn't hand-holding to explain what combos are and the importance of coordinating with teammates, even if it were just hints during loading screens, but MultiVersus relies strictly on the community to do its own work for it in this regard.

- In PvP one has a 60% chance of matching with opponents that have specifically practiced with the character they're playing, which makes it a catch-22 between winning even half of one's matches and levelling up characters other than one's "mains". This becomes even more of an issue in that much of the game's progression requires playing all the different characters, even ones the player doesn't yet have unlocked, especially in PvE content.

- PvE Rifts mode is plagued by typos and spelling errors:

* - In Season 1 Rift 6 "The Megalodog", on one node "Shark Hat-Man" has Banana Guard's portrait instead of Batman's when in the dialogue the gag clearly involves it being Batman speaking.

* - In Season 1 Rift 7 "The Age of Smith", on one node during opening dialogue the character portraits fail to transition between the two different characters, making it look like Bugs Bunny is saying the 'code copy' of Shaggy's line of dialogue.

* - Shaggy's perk "One Last Zoinks!" was at one point misspelled "One Last Zionks!", I ♥♥♥♥ you not.

* - From Season 1 Rift 7 onwards, a challenge listing of hitting with around 15 dash attacks during the match is labeled incorrectly as simply "hit an enemy with dash attacks". Yes, I counted, it's around 15.

* - One of the challenges in Season 1 Rift 7 requires a bottom-of-the-screen ringout on a map in which there is no bottom-of-the-screen ringout hazard.

* - On the last node of the last rift, one text field is glitched, resulting in an indecipherable challenge listing that just says "complete the match with [class name]".

* - On boss fights, the bottom text during the transition says "Defeat -1 opponents to win". See Civvie 11's "negative one rule".

This game is a breeze to play through once you have your controls set up comfortably and you're at a comfortable spot with how frequently, or infrequently, you're saving/loading. The .midi music is appropriate in tone as it brings out the dread and suspense of the enemy placement in most levels.

The game has just the right amount of story for an action game-- next to none-- but with just enough cohesion to still have the game make sense, and the mid-2021 re-release's Episode 4 makes a great addition with its short and sweet pacing that really picks up after its third level.

2.7 hours of playtime reported and it feels like I've had at least 6 hours of this game. An absolute blast, especially with small-medium lobby sizes in FFA!

The character designs are poignant & adorable, as are the "proximity mice" weapons you'll find at least a few of on every map. The 'bricks set' map is also extremely cute.

My only criticism is the lack of diversity in the character dialogue when you frag and/or respawn; it should either be that there's more different lines each character has, or that they only play a small fraction of the time.

This game makes it feel like it's better to be low on health and high on ammo than to be high on health and low on ammo, rewarding a very, very aggressive playstyle that requires contiguous focus... which... is my preferred. >:)

It also feels like I'm being pushed to use the plasmagun more in Doom II than in Doom-- which is good because that gun is a blast-- literally-- and something I didn't have an excuse to use enough in Doom!

This is a brilliantly composed story-driven experience that can be completed in one sitting but will sit with one for hours afterwards. Also, the musical style matches the visual style perfectly.

I was more motivated to continue to try out Stellaris when I was just starting to play it because of having these expanded options for portraits.

different uses:

- if you want your race to be silly, like if your civilization's name is a meme

- or if you want a race that looks powerful and intimidating

- or if, like me, you're most comfortable rolling a race that looks like it's probably super good in bed :P

This game appeals to my love of almost cartoonishly over-the-top explosive weapons. I hear Lo Wang's voiceover go "I like big weapons!" and in my head I just go "he's saying what we've all been thinking!".

The only real downside to this game is the extreme lack of fluidity in combat, with Lo Wang often being able to be killed in only about 3 hits on levels where the enemies and/or booby traps couldn't have been anticipated. They could've made the game equally hard without making it so easily abruptly ending in the middle of levels.

when I played Omori I named my guy "SUSSY" when I saw the default name option was "SUNNY"

God help me

This is basically the same smoothly aggressive, barely surviving one-to-the-next combat loop of Doom, but with a High Fantasy setting, which makes it even better! Gargoyles and Nagas, Vials and Flasks, it's like I'm in Quake but with more colorful castles! :)

The only thing I would've changed is I would've had Weapon 7 be a super-weapon just like the BFG instead of a seventh weapon on par with the rest of 'em. that or just add an 8th weapon that serves as the game's BFG!