Recent reviews by The Yo Tornado

It's always a little awkward critiquing a retro platformer because the line between legitimate gripes and a skill issue can be pretty thin. Curse of the Moon 2 is a big enough step back from the original that I ended up pretty disappointed by the end, though.

CoTM was a fun little game that was a little too short and easy (under three hours for two playthroughs and the final ending.) It was pretty clearly just a side project and promo piece for Ritual of The Night, but it had a really solid framework for something great.

Both games follow the CV3 template of swapping characters, but the new additions (which are your sole party through the first run) are notably less flexible than the prior game's, filling niche roles that leave you pretty screwed if any of them are unusable at a time when the level design decides you need them. This is mitigated in later runs when you have all seven characters, but in your first playthrough where levels are patently designed around who your newest character is it can feel awkward.

The rooms are generally ok, but the overall difficulty is bafflingly uneven, with a way too easy first half punctuated by a pretty insane difficulty spike. It's particularly noticeable in the platforming you're expected to do with tight jumping over death pits. Good luck in the last few levels if you're missing one of the characters with a float.

There's also just not enough variety for the loop of beating the game three times. There's almost no change in the levels beyond there being a new room or two you can access with a new party member, but it's 80-90% the same experience. I ended up playing through run three mostly on Casual, just because I was trying to bypass as much of the game as possible to get to the thin amount of new content. On the subject of the difficulties, the gap between Casual (which is far too easy) and Veteran (where instant death abounds and you might as well kill everyone if you lose a single party member) is huge. Thankfully you can swap between the two if needed, but it does feel like there's a level in between that's missing.

There's just a lot of weird gameplay decisions, too. For example Zangetsu, who feels rather underpowered before a mid-game power-up in the first run, confusingly loses said power-up for lore reasons in the middle of the second for the rest of the game, going back to his default status. The final boss has moon gravity, where you have to re-learn all of the spacing and pacing you learned from 95% of the game on the fly. There is a really fun shmup section in playthrough three (although apparently opinions on that are mixed,) arguably my highlight of the game, but it's also only about 7 minutes. It's entirely possible these gripes can be summarized as git gud, but I legitimately was not enjoying more than half of my time playing.

It's not all bad, the music is solid (though half of it is unremarkable) and the game's pixel art is the perfect mix of modern techniques without defeating the point of being NES-inspired. But ultimately it's just a slog to play for most of the game, choosing quantity over quality and ending up inferior to the original. If you want a Castlevania homage either play the original or Infernax, which don't carry this game's bloat.

The 3rd gets an undeserved reputation as a skippable epilogue. While it is a wonderful "where are they now" bit and an excuse to hang out with the fantastic Trails cast again, it's still a genuinely fantastic game in its own right, even outclassing the first two games in some respects. The additional layers to the battle system are a marked improvement, and although it's personal taste I think the OST generally grades out over the other games as well.

While it focuses heavily on Kevin Graham, a new protagonist who is nearly as great as the Bright family and has the 3rd double as his own self-contained story arc, there's also a bunch of world-building and hints that play into characters and events that will be appearing in later games.

While it is true there's not much of an overarching major plot (it is as flimsy an excuse to get everyone together again as you'd expect,) the character writing remains stellar and if you enjoyed anything about the first two games, I'd argue it's a necessity to experience The 3rd as well before you move on to Crossbell.

If you're here it's because you played FC. Fortunately, SC is just as good as FC, if not better. Picking up immediately afterward, SC sets about tying as many of FC's threads into a neat bow as possible, and they all hit. Curious if the ending of FC affected the state of Liberl? You bet it did, and you get a frontline view of how much of a threat the big bad actually is as you revisit each town and see the aftermath.

Did that one character's major flaw annoy you in some way, and you hoped it'd be rectified? Of course it will be in SC, silly. It's grander in every way, and doesn't miss in any way.

Well, maybe mod Sophisticated Fight back in. The new OST is otherwise great but the new battle theme is low-key a tragedy in comparison.

The second game from Colorgrave, the studio behind Prodigal, Curse Crackers is a large improvement over what that game offered. While not a classic game, it's a pretty damn good one, and shows hints of a formula that could easily turn into one with another entry.

A 2D platformer with GBC/NGPC inspired spritework, Curse Crackers mixes short but varied levels intermixed with hub worlds littered with NPCs and story-related sub quests. The sprites are colorful, with each character having their own palette and every "world" maintaining a unique aesthetic. What the animations lack in frames they make up for with personality. The platforming feels solid for the most part, you have a lot of control over Belle and she has a good sense of speed. There are some minute issues, such as input errors due to your two (radically different) special jumps being a down and down-forward input respectively, and some weird hitboxes that don't make a ton of sense. Perhaps the most annoying part, especially in the endgame, is the amount of screen space. The 16:9 ratio coupled with the large sprites and top screen bezel results in a lot of leaps of faith or unseen enemy projectiles, which can be grating. Still, the game's checkpoint system is extremely forgiving, making any unfair deaths quickly forgotten.

The world's lore centers around 8 monstrous sisters and a godlike mother who created the world in their image, before ultimately conflicting with one another and bringing about a massive war before they all ultimately vanished from the world. Unlike Prodigal, which threw all the lore inside hidden tomes and expected players to hunt them down, CC mixes the worldbuilding naturally into the gameplay through NPCs and specially designed locations on the map. It's not perfect, but it's a much better way of piecemealing such a dense game world and maintained my interest through the ending. Overall, NPCs are fun and relatively unique, and Belle develops interesting relationships with the majority of them throughout the game.

Musically we get some solid chiptunes, with some strong standouts such as the hub world music and the first platforming world's main track. There were a few that will stick in my memory for a while to come, enough that I bought the OST alongside the game.

My biggest issue with the game is the pacing. Though levels are short, they're *littered* with collectibles. Too many, I would argue, with some having as many as 5, with all the different types being mandatory for some form of post-game content. It's a lot to keep track of, and becomes very tedious by the end. The post-game itself is jarring, too. The game's difficulty spike is wild with how much harder the final two worlds are compared to the three prior, and then the post-game 2x's that initial spike. I probably put 25-30 hours into the game (which I'm not sure why they didn't all register) but at least half of that were fetch quests and pixel hunting for collectibles that wore thin in the last inning stretch.

Curse Crackers gives me the same ultimate feeling Prodigal did, where internally I'm going "Man if the devs just had a bit more time or experience, this could've been an all-timer." Even if it doesn't reach it's potential, it's still a very fun, charming platformer, and I'm glad I spent time with it.

Above all else, this collection is worth it just to finally play AAI2, a criminally overlooked title that legitimately has a case for the best game in the series. That it comes with a pretty solid prequel is just a bonus.

The first AAI is decent, if on the lower end of the series in terms of quality. It feels a little too derivative of the PW trilogy. The music sounds a little too close, Kay is a little too much like Maya (although still likeable) and it doesn't really kick into high gear late-game like the others do. Still, it's novel playing as a prosecutor even if not a ton has changed about the gameplay flow, and the cases focus much more on the overall structure of the law in the series which is a unique twist on things. It's also fun having Edgeworth's skill simply being smarter than everyone else in the room rather than relying on anything supernatural.

AAI2, however, is incredible. Getting to be on both sides of the hero/villain fence has given Edgeworth more character development than anyone else in the series, and all of it pays off in AAI2. The best AA games interweave all of the cases together, and here that's done by utilizing Edgeworth's past, often only touched on in prior entries. The game juxtaposes his present insecurity regarding the role of the prosecutor in AA's oddball legal system with his father's time as a defense attorney, and it's an incredibly interesting conflict. Calling back heavily to his portrayal in earlier titles, by the end of the game Edgeworth becomes the most fully-realized character in the series, with the only comp being Phoenix himself (and PW doesn't really come close imo.)

AAI2 also has the best Pursuit theme in the series don't @ me

tl;dr go play Prodigal first. It's a better, longer game, and then play Veritus if you need more of its gameplay.

I generally hate when people preface their steam reviews with "I wish there was a thumbs in the middle" option, but for the first time I understand where they're coming from, because it's hard to decide where I place Veritus on that scale. It's not a *bad* game, especially not for the price, but it's a decidedly lesser version of a superior title.

Despite not being a huge 2D Zelda fan, I tried Prodigal after strong word of mouth and was ultimately glad I did. It was a flawed but fun experience, an impressive first effort juggling a more lighthearted, idyllic surface level of storytelling with some pretty dense, darker worldbuilding underneath. The novel setting and interesting characters made up for some uneven combat and dungeon design. After their next title Curse Crackers, which bordered on legitimately great, I was excited for Colorgrave's next game. Veritus clearly shows where they've made some strides, but takes some surprising steps back from their prior efforts.

Veritus eschews the tonal mix of the first game to focus almost entirely on the darker dungeon crawling half of the first game, to middling results. The hub town of the first game has been replaced with brief camps in between levels of the sprawling dungeon the game entirely takes place within, and the townsfolk have been supplanted by your adventuring party which, despite some cool designs, are entirely one-dimensional in terms of personality and don't have much substance to them. The lore and overall plot are told almost entirely in books and notes found while exploring, which are generally meandering and don't delve into much beyond vague exposition. By the final act it was borderline incomprehensible to me.

While I beat Prodigal, I did not do the post-game DLC that was added years after its release, which is partially on me but without that context much of the game's plot was extremely confusing. There's seemingly very little connection to what you did in the first game beyond the MCs sharing a similar sprite, especially since none of the previous cast carries over otherwise. It's not helped by the game's treating you as having 100% grasp of the plot without explaining any of its abstract elements, of which there are *many*. Veritus really could've used a more fleshed out introduction or some sort of codex/log to fill in what might've been missed without playing the prior title.

There are some elements that are clearly improved from Prodigal. That game had an uneven soundtrack, and the music here is much better, using more complex melodies and giving each level of the dungeon a very distinct feel. The character designs and spritework are also much more detailed than the prior game, and the game overall is a real joy to look at and hear.

I'm just frankly baffled by the decision to devote the game almost entirely to the first game's driest aspects without reworking some of the mechanics. Combat consists almost entirely of mashing attack through an enemy's hitstun, with some pretty inconsistent hit detection on your attacks and on environmental damage. The puzzles have been noticeably simplified, with a lot of them able to be skipped over entirely with system mechanics. I don't mind that necessarily, but it's a puzzling decision now that the game is almost solely devoted to spelunking.

To be totally fair to the game, I don't think I'm the target audience. Someone who really adores the 2D Zelda titles the game is cribbing from might not mind my grievances quite so much. I was just hoping for more of what I liked from the original game, and Veritus instead doubles down on what I didn't like over what I preferred. I still have faith in Colorgrave and I'm there for whatever they make, but I'm glad their next projects are looking drastically different as I think they've squeezed about as much out of this genre as they can.

It's the best game in a long-running series, with a host of QoL fixes and a beautiful 2.5HD visual update.

If you ever wanted to try Star Ocean, or are looking for a JRPG with a sci-fi feel to it, you really can't go wrong here.

Midnight Suns rules. A strange hybrid of Slay The Spire, Fire Emblem: Three Houses, and Mortal Kombat's Krypt that has no right to work as well as it does. Full of fun character beats, an extremely addicting gameplay loop between numerous mission types and teambuilding/exploring in-between, and a battle system that is both incredibly easy to pick up and multilayered (despite being someone who typically *hates* deckbuilders.) Probably my GOTY, an absolutely wonderful experience.

Every once in a while I grab a game just off of its steam store page, hoping to find a unique gem. I'm glad to say that not only does Kokoro Clover fit that bill, it's one of the most pleasant surprises I've experienced in a long while, and left a permanent smile on my face almost as soon as I hit the start button.

Kokoro Clover was clearly made by a small team, but with the amount of content you'd be hard pressed to tell once you've been playing for a while. The gameplay is essentially a basic run and gun, with light platforming elements, although there's a decent bit of customization with various spirits you can summon to aid you in battle. There's a cutscene-driven story mode, a more arcade-like exploration mode that eschews the cutscenes for larger stages, and a surprising amount of boss rush levels. Stages aren't very long, but with each mode having 10-12 of them there's a decent amount of content factored in. On top of that are a surprising amount of extras, such as a world and character glossary, a shop and gacha system that lets you buy collectable trading cards and skills, and even a mini rhythm game. It should be mentioned the game is pretty easy, designed for all ages, but there's enough variety in later levels and some of the boss rushes to maintain the attention of players who need a bit more difficulty.

Most people will be grabbed by the Kokoro Clover's style first and foremost. The game's aesthetics go well beyond what you'd expect for. Every stage is bright and colorful, and has a brief intro cutscene, followed by an anime OP and title card, really hammering home that nostalgic feeling of turning the TV on to catch your favorite show as soon as you get home from school (This can be easily skipped for all you curmudgeons out there.) In between there are also brief interludes where the characters summarize the story up to that point. The fun designs and well animated pixel art really let it mimic crazy cartoon action to great effect. On top of that, the chiptune soundtrack is incredibly catchy with a lot of great melodies, always suiting the level or scene they accompany.

A special shout out to the localization team who really nailed the English translation. Every character has their own cadence and tone, with gruff laymen and sailors having heavy accents and vain villains trying desperately (and failing) to sound upper class. Between the dialogue and the outlandish animations I chuckled way more than I expected to.

It's incredibly easy for a game that relies so heavily on charm to roll into becoming embarrassing, but Kokoro Clover doesn't fall into that trap. It's enthusiasm and sincerity are absolutely infectious, and those qualities wrapped around a solid game really help it feel like something special. I've had a blast, and I really hope there are further seasons to come.

I came into this game with low expectations like many did, thanks to the tremendous disappointment that was The Avengers. What I expected to be a mediocre squad shooter with hokey dialogue ended up being a serious GOTY contender, with an absolutely fantastic story, incredible visual design, and a gameplay loop that manages to combine beats from both Mass Effect and Uncharted while avoiding many of their pitfalls.

Oftentimes when a game tries to be funny, it falls flat on its face, and if humor is a central theme of the game that can weaken the entire experience. Anyone who saw pre-release footage of GotG would assume it falls down a similar path but I can emphatically state that is *not* the case. The quips are as rapid-fire as you would expect from the IP, but incredibly they hit far more often than they miss. As someone who generally doesn't find Marvel humor too amusing about 75% of the lines got me, and even the ones that didn't still felt in character and added to the dynamic the team builds over the course of the story.

With a meaty 15-20 hour campaign the characters get a lot more room to breathe and develop than they would in a movie, which allows every Guardian to feel much more developed than their MCU counterparts. The game also takes place in its own separate canon from the comic books and films, allowing them to play with established narrative in fun ways that keeps even those familiar with the characters on their toes.

Credit must be given to the visuals as well. Every setting feels like it was ripped straight out of a prog rock album cover, with wild and weird color palletes, geometry, and creatures that give it an unabashedly retro sci-fi feel that I adore.

Regardless of whether you're a fan of Marvel or not, I cannot recommend GoTG enough. If you're looking for a lengthy linear single-player romp, a fun sci-fi throwback, or legitimately top tier writing that somehow balances humor and dramatic beats perfectly, GotG will have a lot to offer you..