Recent reviews by Zelda

Very good SMB/SMW/Yoshi's Island/etc inspired game. Cute gay foxes. Full voice acting, surprisingly. Art is very charming and the gameplay is very tight as you'd expect with just enough unique that it's not "just mario 3 with foxes". Very nostalgic yet accessible even if you've never played SMB3.

It's not finished yet, but what's there so far is haunting and beautiful.

The subject matter of the story is very grim and obviously not for everyone, but I really recommend giving it a try. It feels more like rumination and sifting through feelings than something trying to push a certain conclusion or moral, and it feels a lot more personal and authentic for it. If you've played Everything Is Going To Be Okay, this game is oddly much more peaceful yet from a darker place, it's hard to quite describe.

The glitch-chic aesthetic is done very well and more prominent in the first chapter. I find the first chapter harder hitting and much, much more direct, while the second is more open and beautiful. There's a lot less story-per-minute in chapter 2, but it feels more engaging and interesting. I do think the second chapter could be tightened up speed/confusion wise, which is my only real complaint so far.

Here's my full video playthrough & commentary on the first version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULxwQfVMgGY

Also a tip: If you're stuck on chapter 2, press space bar. You warp between several locations key to the plot, so explore around those and you should find all 4 places you need.

Woof. Almost hard pass: Tee KO 2 is almost PERFECT, almost every change I wanted was put in EXACTLY as how I wanted! It's easily one of their best individual games ever.

But the rest. Oh my gosh. I really hope they fix some of these. I refunded it. You can see us play it here =/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQ69A-k7RGw I can't recommend it for the full $35, but once it's on sale for $15~ I'll get it just for Tee KO.

TimeJinx is okay. If you like trivia, specifically exact-ish dates of historical events, it's great. I wish it had a no-dates mode, the later rounds are fun but much of the score comes from exact date rote memorization, my least favorite thing from school. 4/10

Fixy Text is a disaster. It's not a fun one like jobjob. I get what it's trying to do, but it doesn't work. Everyone types at once and picks a cursor spot, and the result is kind of just garbled nonsense. It'd work better if you could only change cursors once, or if you could stop someone else from typing as your 'power' instead. Or...something. It's just not very fun even after you get the hang of it, everyone just types random crap.
People vote for funny words, so it's best to just spam funny/offensive words based on your crowd. Scoring would be better if you had to pick consecutive words to reward people who managed to fill out a coherent thought. 2/10

Dodo Re Mi is just Guitar Hero. It's unplayable on mouse and the tutorial of all things is extremely hard. We just quit. The other games can be fixed with SEVERE changes, this one cannot. 0/10

Hypnotorious is one of those "everyone has to play the game EXACTLY right for it to be fun" games. Your first play of it will be a nightmare. You can either be funny or play it right, and I don't like games like those. 1/10

What can I say that hasn't been said a million times, an incredible game. It's dynamic enough to create real stories by sheer complexity, it's just so cool. My cook got stuck in a pool and punched an unknowable salt creature to death 100 layers below the earth.

First off, the CONSISTENT password system, QR code roomcodes, and ability to kick people: this alone almost makes it the best jackbox pack if you're streaming. It is SO nice to not have to fuss with passwords changing between games (kicking idle players mid round would be even nicer though). I would seriously pay for a DLC adding this to past packs. It's going to be SO hard to go back.

And then, I suppose, are the actual games. This is an absolute banger pack, after just 4 hours I think I'm already ready to say it's my favorite pack. Only Nonsensory kinda sucked (interesting idea but definitely a low point) and that's still better than plenty of other jackbox games.

Roomerang is great, I just wish it had more themeing/gameplay to reinforce the roleplay aspect. We had a gentlemens agreement to play a character after 3 rounds, that worked well enough. Fibbage is just fibbage, it's great, new prompts, you'll know if you'll like it. Junktopia is great, I love all the "write silly dialog" games and this is designed just for that. Finally Quixort I thought I wouldn't like but the team structure and potentially hard calls cause for some hilarious banter. I highly recommend you argue and heckle the other team while playing. The game is like, 1/5th of the fun, 4/5ths is the banter.

Tentatively calling this the best though jackbox 4 and 7 and still amazing (and JobJob is outstanding even if 8 is mid).

Game is good. You is confuse and learning. Baba is cute.

Absolutely play Gemcraft Frostborn Wrath first; you can tell how much they learned from this game and smoothed out the Quality of Life in that one.

Still, if you haven't had enough after beating Frostborn Wrath, this is still solid Gemcraft and different enough (albeit in clumsy ways) to feel a bit fresh. There's a few too many gem types, Tome chambers are a bit of a pain, but it just goes to show how well it's sequel refined the formula here. You can still easily spend dozens of hours before even beating the game on base difficulty.

Hard to give just one rating here. If you own none of the Jackbox games, this is a decent place to start. It's 2 of their best games, and Tee KO which is either great or very frustrating depending on who you ask.

If you already own the games, there is basically no difference whatsoever to the versions of the games included in their original packs, other than it has the Jackbox 8 settings menu (which honestly does not add much at all) and translations I guess. Obviously the importance of the translations is up to the user.

After a playing a couple hours, as far as I can tell Tee KO is exactly the same other than the jackbox 8 style settings menu (moderation/host muting features) and quiplash appears to be completely identical, I assume/hope it has new prompts.

Honestly, whether you do or don't have the games included--I'd just get Jackbox Party Pack 4 or 7 instead.

If you enjoyed Doom 2016 you might be a fair bit disappointed in this one, it is not bad but the changes toward a more "arcadey" vibe really don't mesh well (there's about 5 actions you're meant to constantly be performing in every battle, outside of movement and shooting). But the base game is good enough, cool lore, instant-fire chainsaw was a good change, Unmayker is sick, meathook is fun.

But oh my GOD the DLC. Do not play it, do not look up the lore. Do not play Horde mode. It is so unfun and just kind of nukes the main game's story in multiple, sometimes contradictory ways. The devs also clearly took complaints about Marauders (a very annoying RNG waiting game enemy) very seriously and decided to make basically the entire DLC about marauders and similarly frustrating new enemies, including the final boss who can wait a full minute before deciding you're allowed to attack.

Basically 7/10 too much everything except ammo and fun.
I rate it a soft Recommend without the DLC and a firm Not Recommended with it.

Really enjoyable little Wario Ware game with lots of microgames. Note the First chapter (after the prologue) is pretty bland, but it picks up a LOT in the second chapter.
My stream of the game: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iBaxJq1TxH8