Recent reviews by Captain Froggy

Undertale, after the hype... The game that broke the internet for a year. The Kickstarter indie that made millions, exceeded expectations, and spawned countless memes, gaining infamy as either the best or the worst game you'll ever play depending on who you ask. The RPG with the most un-engaging gameplay but the most engaging story. The game where you don't have to kill anyone, or you can kill EVERYONE.

So you're probably reading this, wondering "does it live up to the hype?" Short answer is yes. Despite it's simplistic graphics and art style, simple gameplay, short plot, and simple writing, it manages to provoke interesting thoughts and emotions. If you like RPG's, pixelated graphics, adventures, and/or emotional rollercoasters, or even just one of those things, just go buy it. You came here for the short answer just like everyone does, you quickly scroll to the reviews, read a few, then scurry off to YouTube for a 5-minute review video before ultimately buying it even though it got panned. If you live on the edge, you read one Steam review and then fork over the cash then and there. You got your short answer now go!

...but if you're still reading right now, you came for the long answer. That's good, I like you, so this one's for you. The long answer is, you will either love or hate this game from the moment you see the basement. If you love it, play through both the Neutral and True Pacifist runs to get the most of the experience. But if you hated it, then slap yourself in the face, grab your favorite caffeinated beverage, and continue through sheer DETERMINATION. Let's do a quick pro and con list for the lazy:

PROS:
-simplistic art and graphics, combined with a cap of 30FPS and almost no processing and graphics card necessary which means you can play this game on virtually every PC from 2005 to whatever year you're reading this in. Just wait until someone ports it to SNES...
-amazing music and sound, 8 bit has never sounded this good. The use of leitmotifs to make every song recognizable and memorable is genius, the context and atmosphere sets the appropriate mood every time
-very cheap, often goes on sale for half off
-thought provoking story
-dynamic and hilarious characters with witty lines that perfectly display their personalities
-enough secrets and easter eggs to make you want to replay, even on the same routes
-easy combat and effortless movement, playable on almost any input device, which means no technical skill is required and there is basically no learning curve
-text can be skipped easily
-interesting use of fonts/capitals and text-rendering sounds to identify who is talking, how quickly, etc.
-overall witty, so meta it hurts. Intentional irony and sarcasm, very inclusive of niche fandoms, fun shenanigans and self-references (you either love or hate these) with lots of puns and recurring elements that you always look forward to or enjoy seeing, with a healthy amount of awkward
-emotionally manipulative. Between the music, characters/dialogue, story, atmosphere, and art, it will make you feel exactly the right way at exactly the right time. This takes a lot of attention to detail and brilliant writing to pull off

CONS:
-simplistic art and graphics, 2D and pixels are not for everyone. Yes, I wrote it as both a pro and a con, you decide.
-small actions (or missed actions) can completely change a run. Not buying something in the RUINS, killing a single enemy, not checking a room or sign can mean anything from skipping entire boss fights to missing a cool bit of lore to changing people's opinion of you or the ending you get
-intentionally cringey and creepy sometimes
-rather boring movement and easy puzzles, combat is okay but once you have things memorized it's easy
-not knowing what to do can be frustrating, just like with small actions you didn't know about, not knowing how to complete certain boss fights or how to get good endings can suck, especially with the danger of spoiling yourself
-keeps you in the dark for most of the game, even after your first run
-hardly any inventory space for half the game, and you can't recover dropped items
-kinda short overall
-the neutral route ending sucks and you have to do at least 1 neutral before you can do the others
-merchants don't do a lot, there isn't a lot to buy, and you can't sell until you reach a certain area that is somewhat hidden
-money can only be earned in 2 ways, farming monsters and selling residue. Both are time consuming, one aborts a route, the other is annoying, and there isn't much to do with it

If you're not convinced by now, I don't know what else to tell ya. I pretty much gave up all the juicy stuff in the list, oops. At least it's easier to read that way. Anyway, if you do buy the game, my advice is as follows: interact with/activate/talk to everything you see, google all the weapons and armor so you can pick them up on the way, pay attention to the music, and NEVER GIVE UP. That may sound cliche but seriously, you will be cruising along loving the game, then suddenly a boss fight will make you wanna rage quit, so just hop up on DETERMINATION and keep playing.

You're probably still wondering why it got so hyped. Well, it did start as a Kickstarter game, and at the time of release those were pretty infamous for being scams so it got a lot of attention when people wanted to see what happened with it. Indies were also becoming a focus in the mainstream, so that got lots of hype trains started. Toby Fox delivered on most of, if not all of the promises made in the Kickstarter, but people were either blown out of the water by the genius writing, or hated the intentional cringiness and simplicity. If it isn't abundantly clear by now, the game is very polarizing for many reasons, combined with the younger audience it attracted due to how meta and simple it looks on the surface, it attracted just a LOT of people. Lots of people = lots of different viewpoints, different viewpoints = opinions flying around like crazy. Also memes, I think there were many things intentionally designed to become memes that eventually got overused and people just got tired of that. Now that the hype has died down I decided to give it a shot and ended up falling in love, so hopefully I can convince some more who are late to the party to join in.

In conclusion, buy the game. That's all there is to be said at this point, that's all for now folks.

Quake Champions... what Overwatch wants to be, what Lawbreakers should have been, a worthy successor to the legendary Quake Live, the ultimate test of skill with enough BS to keep casuals entertained and introduce them to the world of competitive gaming. Let me preface this by saying that I am not a Quake veteran, nor am I the type to write reviews, my opinion should be taken with a grain of salt especially since I have not played this game for very long and was gifted it for free. (a kind member of r/quakechampions gifted me the Scale pack)

You're probably reading this because you want to know if you should buy Quake Champions. The short answer is: YES. You should buy Quake Champions, whether it be the $5 that gets you 2 characters or the whole package. Just do it, you (probably) won't regret it.

The long answer is: maybe, probably. The reason why I say "maybe" is because Quake is very polarizing, you either love it or you hate it. But you won't know until you try it, and as of writing this review there is no way to play any version of Quake for free. You could try Unreal Tournament 4 for free before it inevitably gets shut down, but good luck finding matches and it's still not Quake. $5 is a very small price to pay for a taste of one of the longest running, most inspirational and most competitive games in history and the pioneer of the modern first person shooter. Let's do a quick pro and con list before I give some more detailed thoughts.

PROS:
-Inexpensive
-great graphics, very well optimized
-a modernized installment of a classic series
-extremely fast paced gameplay
-lots of characters with 1-button and passive abilities, which means great depth and lots of options
-fairly well balanced (from a casual perspective, I'm sure the invite-level players have some choice words for it)
-continued development with devs that actually listen to the community and are willing to fix their mistakes
-interesting movement that is very similar to the likes of Team Fortress 2, Overwatch, and Counter-Strike
-8 different weapons to cover all situations, with many projectile-based weapons for ultra satisfying kills, again with extreme similarity to TF2 and OW
-thriving competitive scene, but just casual enough to have fun and easily get started (unlike Quake Live)
-interesting gamemodes with both Lone Wolf and team-based modes
-great sound design and voice acting, there's no annoying fanfare after each match, classic announcer ("HUMILIATION" never gets old), and every character sounds like a real person and not a cartoon character
-overall less cheaters and toxicity than most other FPS/competitive games at the moment
-lots of options for customization
-get daily rewards just for launching the game, rewards for completing basic challenges and leveling up your profile, which means you technically can unbox all the characters (I've already gotten 2 from free crates)

CONS:
-still early access which means there will be changes you may or may not like.
-buying the cheap pack means lots of grinding for characters and overall more money spent if you buy characters later
-movement is tight
-extreme skill curve with an infinite skill ceiling
-1 button abilities that get cheap kills, they're mostly balanced and actually require skill to use (unlike a certain popular game), but still kinda janky, this is an inherent problem with "hero" FPS games
-competitive is not for everyone
-gorey (this can be either a pro or a con, but given many over-protective parents and squeamish people exist, I gave it a con)
-queue times can be long, especially if you don't live in North America or the UK
-inventory/item system is in desperate need of an overhaul, colors and small attachments can only be gotten from unboxing with many duplicates and un-sellable items that make customization basically luck of the draw (fortunately this has been confirmed to be a focus in the near future)
-long loading times
-lore is a mile wide and an inch deep
-still no centered viewmodels (with the exception of the Original and Oscillator)
-no offline mode and very limited custom servers (this is also being worked on)

That's the quick and dirty of it, obviously you'll have to weigh these for yourself but personally I find most of the downsides to be rather small compared to the enjoyment I get out of the game. Probably one of the most interesting parts of this game is how easy it is to get started if you've played a similar game such as TF2, Halo, Lawbreakers, or Overwatch. I have nearly 4,000 hours in TF2 at the time of writing, and as such I was already intimately familiar with concepts like strafing/air strafing, strafe jumping/bunny hopping, rocket jumping, character depth, etc. I also main Soldier which means adjusting to Quake's rocket launcher was literally nonexistent, despite my low amount of hours I can hit directs and airshots as if I was playing TF2. I also grew up with Halo so I'm very good with tracking projectiles (nailgun) and shotguns. The movement and overall feel is so similar to Source games it's scary. From the first spawn, Quake felt familiar in a weird way, like deja vu and a lucid dream combined to make me feel like I'd played it before... but I hadn't.

This is fantastic for those who have played any of the games I've mentioned in this review so far, because you will have a much easier time learning this game than someone who has either never played an FPS before, or who came here from CoD/Battlefield. If you did come here from a hitscan-only shooter like Battlefield or Rainbow Six, or if you're a total casual, I think there are still ways for you to have fun with the Railgun and Heavy Machinegun. Many people will warn you and tell you that you'll get rekt, and believe me, YOU WILL GET DESTROYED IN YOUR FIRST FEW HOURS, but you'll definitely have an easier time snapping out of it if you're like me and have played similar games before. Even after you've started learning the game, YOU WILL GET DESTROYED, but it's so so so worth it. Trust me, the high of when you get your first rocket airshot, getting first in Instagib, bunny hopping straight into somebody and popping them with the Super Shotgun, going on a rampage with the Lightning Gun with "QUAD DAMAGE," it all gets addicting very quickly. When you lose in Quake you know it's because of your own lack of skill and not some BS game mechanic designed to make casuals feel good about themselves, although that does exist partially due to the character abilities, it's a lot more balanced than any other Hero shooter yet. The fun comes from the little victories I just mentioned, not from winning every match or getting a 6:1 K/D ratio, it comes from watching yourself progress in skill levels and from doing absolutely insane things. Even when you die it can be entertaining if the enemy kills themselves with a rocket/ability, or when you get them from the grave with a projectile, or watching 1 guy take out your entire team, or watching an all out brawl over the Quad... the list can go on forever, even with such a simplistic game like Quake the possibilities are endless, which reduces the repetition that comes from FPS (and specifically Hero FPS) games significantly.

I'm not entirely sure how to end this review. I'm not gonna just summarize everything like every other review or like basic writing dictates, so I'll just end with some vague and inspirational crap. It's very hard to articulate the passion this game inspires in a competitive gamer, even one who has no nostalgic ties to it. It's very hard to convince someone to play a game they know they will lose repeatedly in. It's very hard to play this game at all, yet millions have loved it over it's almost 30 year lifespan. In conclusion, I hope YOU, the reader, enjoy this game - no, I hope you buy it and give it a shot even if you don't end up liking it. If you buy the game after reading my review and love it that's great, but if you end up hating it, please tell me why in the comments.