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Yuppie Psycho is a well crafted piece of surreal horror that captivates the player with ever expanding and new scenarios while formulating a clearly defined target: Kill the Witch.

Working is a big part of anyone’s identity. People define themselves with what they are doing and who pays them for their work. Yuppie Psycho more or less directly captures the player with its atmosphere and the MC becomes an extension of reflection. Brian, the MC, is thrown into a situation of absurdity, yet it remains somewhat understandable. Everything is surreal, but it makes sense in a twisted kind of way. Everyone has gone insane to a certain degree, but a job can be worth your sanity.
At least it is more than nothing. At least you are more than nothing.

The gameplay of Yuppie Psycho is somewhat tedious, because it has been inspired by nothing else than “The Witch’s House”. Brian mainly just runs around and uses items from his inventory to collect other items. Often puzzles are involved which are not to difficult, yet they remain extremely entertaining.
Often Survival Horror Games are extremely hard to make them challenging and the riddles become too abstract, just to mess with the player.
While there is a charm to it, Yuppie Psycho is a lot more casual and becomes playable for someone who does not want to repeat the same sequence often.
Yuppie Psycho is a lot closer to the first Resident Evil in terms of design philosophy. Only the ability to fight back is something that Yuppie Psycho does not offer. While boss fights exist (and they are often really atmospheric and pretty good for such a game albeit the limits show), they are the exception. Frontal Engages are just not an option, because the player lacks the means to fight back. You are not a trained killer, you are just a random guy that wants to survive.
Personally I think that the gameplay is the weakest part of the game. It is not fun, but it carries the momentum of the atmosphere and is vital for the experience. Changing something would ruin the intended immersion.

Ressources are limited and can not be farmed. Everything has value and can be used one way or another. This means that searching through everything is a virtue that has to become a quality of the player. Loot everything, nothing is holy. Yuppie Psycho stacks the odds against the player. No specials power, even saving the game is a limited resource.
Yuppie Psycho asks you to stay tuned and never let your guard down. Luck favors the prepared. Always stay prepared and you will master your job.

This game is scary. No cheap jumpscares, but psychological horror that combines with the stress to survive. While no real punishments exist, the imagery and themes are scary enough to confuse the watcher. A lack of light and a good knowledge of color palettes formed a visually interesting spectacle that sometimes transcends pixel art. The music is good, but somewhat forgettable. It firmly lands in the “good ambient music” category.
To get the greater picture, the player has to remain interested and focused. Witch means that you have to pay attention to any detail that crosses your way. There are always two layers to anything that you see and that is not good for your understanding, but it will pay off, if you keep asking the right questions.
Ḁ̮̳̼̉͞ḷ̸͚̗̪̰̩͉̀̒̔ͅŵ҉̪̟̻̩a̰̯͕̔ͩ͝y̴͉͎̝̮̭ͯ̅̅ͤs̮̜̙͕ͣ͟ ̞͙̼̲͕̹̦̜̿̏̈͜f̶̻̫̖̳̞̯͊ͅe̟̺͖̜̬ͯ̅͋͜ȧ͙̻̥̓͟r͖̮̦̤͇̙͎̄͒ͭ͟ ̲̺̞̙̄̽͜ͅd̬͔͍͖̦͍̝ͬ͡u̡̲̱͙͇̥̐́ạ̳͇̥̗̬̈́̆͐͢l̻̗̾̊͝i̭̰͍͋ͤ͂͢t̴̰̪͑͆̄̃y̸͇͇̟̖̤͂̂̚

Yuppie Psycho is extremely entertaining in terms of social critique. Useless unions, extreme motivation boni, indifference to your colleagues and a lot more. If you have ever worked in a big company:
Yuppie Psycho will feel right at home. I can not stress how funny this game becomes, if you get the references. I imagine that someone in the staff was like: What if we took every stereotype of the modern big company workforce and turned it up to eleven. And then they just rolled with it.
Absolutely hilarious.

Playing through Yuppie Psycho is a slog at times. The gameplay just is not enjoyable, because it is supposed to be trial and error at times. While Yuppie Psycho is not too difficult, dying is extremely scary just because of the thought of repeating actions.
Limited saving like in Resident Evil has become an outdated concept. There are clear problems with it: It demotivates the player and encourages to spoil oneself to make sure when to save. Making an interesting game that is too tedious to play through always steps closer to the Pathologic line:
Great to watch and discuss, but terrible to actually play.
Checking everything is also tedious and has to be repeated, if the loot tour ends with the death of the player.
The biggest problem I have with Yuppie Psycho is that many aspects feel relatively isolated and do not connect with the greater themes of the game. At least they are not obvious enough for an untrained eye such as mine and many things stays shrouded in mystery. While the approach absolutely has some strong points and adds to the surreal flare, it makes some aspects dubious and good and informative discussions can lead to nothing.

Yuppie Psycho absolutely nails its intentions and atmosphere. The individual scenarios and the dialogue as well as the visual design carry the game and this makes Yuppie Psycho extremely entertaining, but it slightly overstays its welcome and the gameplay can be off-putting.

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Final Fantasy has been surpassed in every aspect by its successors. Yet it has something to it that can not be replicated: A genuine effort to create a good game. A final effort for a Final Fantasy.

You chose a career as a game creator. You really want to make games and there is especially one title you want to create:
An RPG.
Yet the company does not believe in you. They look at your ideas and think that this can not work.
But Dragon Quest was successful and they took a different stance. Suddenly you can create your own game. The man who has such a history was nobody else than Hironobu Sakaguchi.
And under pressure he got some decent talent on his team:
Nobuo Uematsu (a man who needs no introduction), Nasir Gebelli (inspiration for John Romero who created Wolfenstein 3-D and Doom), Kazuko Shibuya (you have seen her pixel art and chibi artworks) Hiroyuki Ito (battle designer for FFI to FFXII) and Yoshitaka Amano (you have seen his art).
And they created something special.

And after a lot of hard work they created a masterpiece (respective to its time). Final Fantasy I is extremely simple in concept: Beasts drain crystals, crystals lose power and no power means death to the world.
While it is basic, FFI was revolutionary at its time. The graphics were incredible, the battle screen was informative, the monster and character design had charm and the music was enchanting (as always).
While it was incredibly bugged, FFI more or less worked and offered a decent experience.

FF1 is relatively simple to be honest. At the beginning you can choose the classes for your party of four which gives the game replayability. The first Final Fantasy is more closely related to Dungeons and Dragons than japanese culture. Many enemies and items are directly related to D&D.
While certain aspects (like the Masamune or the Ninja class) are carried from Japan, the setting stays a lot more medieval with some futuristic aspects.
Your task is to travel the world and solvie episodic scenarios which feed into a larger overarching narrative.
While extremely simple in terms of plot, it can not compare to later entries, yet FFI manages to stay sincere and plays its simple story straight.
After the character creation you get into random battles which are turn-based to grind some EXP and gold. The most important thing:
There are no MP, only charges for magic. This means that items are needed in large numbers, because the dungeons are hard. Really hard. You will burn through so many potions that it eats your budget. And spells are not learned by leveling, they have to be bought. Do not waste your money, it is precious (up to a certain point).

Oh Boi.
Final Fantasy I has quite the history and many different versions. Which makes rating this version almost impossible. For some it is too easy, because it hands you more Gold and EXP than the older versions. It does not include the endgame content of the subsequent Dawn of Souls releases and also does not have the pre-rendered cutscenes from the PS1 (Final Fantasy Origins).
With no possibility to find a middle ground on all these aspects, Square just decided to make a working version that is relatively easy, is nice to look at (in terms of pixel art) and features a beautiful reworked soundtrack (by Nobuo Uematsu himself).
I would not call this the ultimate version, but it is quite good and offers some insight into the roots of the franchise. Like I said: FF1 has been surpassed by everyone of its successors.
This is not a game played for its quality, it is played for the history and emotions that people connect to the franchise. Just a little dream that expanded to gargantuan sizes.

I enjoyed my time and while I see that FFI is a small indie game (if we consider modern standards and respective to its time), it is also a beautiful piece of history. This game could not be recommended to someone that seeks a “good game”, but to someone who wants to seek the experience of old.
Final Fantasy stood the test of time. The game as well as the franchise.

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SUPERHOT is the most innovative shooter I've played in years. It combines strong scenarios with a fundamentally different gameplay that is extremely unique. It offers not much of a “story” though and most of the time it is just shooting red guys.

SUPERHOT is a good experience and a passable game. The lack of gameplay variety and the cryptic narrative have done a lot to make it memorable, yet it feels more like a proof of concept than a fully thought out game.

“Red Guys” exist. “Red Guys” should not exist. Eliminate “Red Guys” to reach the next level. Repeat the process. This is the core loop of SUPERHOT and it only provides one quirk which changes everything: The enemies are only allowed to act, if you are acting.
This means that there is no limit to your thinking process, but it makes the game much harder, because the kill times are short (one shot kills you). The game can in theory be played without using this mechanic by permanently moving, but this makes SUPERHOT incredibly hard and as such I would consider this mechanic not optional. Especially considering the factor that enemies can spawn at any time and almost anywhere. The game is not fair, because you are supposed to retry and abuse the mechanic to its fullest potential.

The weapon sandbox of SUPERHOT is lacking, yet the game provides enough tools to not overstay its welcome in relation to its short length (around 3 hours).
The number of ranged options is great, but they have no real feel to them that makes them unique. Loading time, fire rate and radius are the only factors to consider and as such only three guns exist and around two meaningful melee weapon categories. This makes the gameplay extremely monotone in concept, but the placement and actual room design create some memorable encounters.

Red Guys are stupid and smart at the same time. They seek for weapons and shoot, if they are able to. That is the smart part. Their stupidity stems from just spamming their attack moves as soon as they could potentially hit you and trying to reach the closest weapon. Easily manipulated and the biggest challenge is to memorize when they spawn. If I had to compare them to anything:
Every enemy is a Halo CE Grunt without the running away part. This lack of enemy variance becomes boring over time and there are only so many interesting scenarios to carry the situation.

A story exists and it is passable. SUPERHOT is a game that focuses on a meta narrative and as such charters relatively unknown territory, but I do not think that it does that particularly well. While the concepts are interesting, there is no real depth to the actual storytelling. It formulates more questions than it answers. If a story is too vague and provides no real answer (or at least possible answers), the story becomes something like a proof of concept. While SUPERHOT arguably has a coherent narrative, it lacks world-building and does not establish enough elements to reach greater depth. “Being cryptic” does not equal “being deep”.

SUPERHOT is a short and nice experience that can outlasts its welcome, if you are stuck at a particular level, yet it is quite unique and the merit of being unique can not be overstated. I think there is a lot more potential to this idea and maybe later entries polish the execution further. There is a basis for a masterpiece, but not more.

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Gooreat game that oozes charm. DQ XI is a contender for a jelly adventure on any list that will stick with you for a while. It glibbers with the power of the past, yet it is not a master of Nu’Un.

“Dragon Quest has somewhat of a legacy” would be the understatement of the day. The problem:
Its power and might are somewhat limited to Japan and only the roots reached the west.
But how popular is DQ in Japan? Everyone knows it. Dragon Quests power reached a level that the series is too big to fall and will always remain relevant.
Two games are the reason for this:
Dragon Quest 3, a legendary game, that cemented JRPGs are their own genre and casted a shadow that is still felt to this day. And Dragon Quest V which is just a masterpiece (that I still need to play). The other games range from great to amazing.
Dragon Quest does not fail, it only varies between levels of success.
There is no Dragon Fantasy XIII: Slime Returns, the series is just too focused and consistent to make such a mistake.
And that makes Dragon Quest so enjoyable, you know that you are going to have a good time.
Japan knows the concept of Karōshi (death through overworking), yet this dark place has created a fundamental piece of relaxing atmosphere and genuine happiness which got captured in a game.
The power of Dragon Quest at its best.

Why should I play this one (and I am also asking why the title is so long, I feel like I lose life time whenever my brain recalls that game by name)?
The simple answer: this is the only mainline game that is on Steam and also it is quite good.
DQ XI is a spiritual successor to DQ VIII that has been popular for years and builds upon that, A clearly defined cast with strong personalities, lavish landscapes which are pretty detailed for their time and a long overarching story that has been divided into multiple arcs.
The structure of DQ XI is simple, but extremely effective. Over the course of the game everything will become extremely familiar and the lively animations of the monsters, places and music manage to sell this world as a genuine place that has its own logic and rules.

Dragon Quest XI captured me like a net, I did not sleep, I needed answers and to see how it will play out. The individual pieces of DQ XI are so strong that there is almost no downtime on anything, they managed to make (almost any) second count. The character arcs are strong and meaningful which has been supported by massive amounts of dialogue. “Show me, don’t tell” is an important rule for telling stories, but games are extremely long at times and talking to someone establishes the character over time. DQ XI intends to build these people, the rules they follow and how they will behave if confronted with a problem. The game succeeded to say the least.
The other thing that Dragon Quest is known for:
Grinding. I hate Grinding at times and think it is a boring filler task that nowadays only serves as a background activity, if you are casually talking with someone else. XI toned that way down, grinding is mostly optional and in total I grinded for maybe 5 hours to reach the max level.
If you are stuck at a certain boss that really wrangles you: Thee shall sail to the east and find the precious metal and slaughter it with ferocious will.
Not to forget:
Especially the visual design and animations of the enemies should be praised for their level of detail and vibrant moves.

DQ XI has no distinct weaknesses, but it has lackluster areas.
The combat is relatively simple and most of the time reducing the enemy defense and buffing your attack stats should be enough for most encounters.
Some sections drag a little and feel like mandatory concepts which are needed, but will not surprise or even interest the player.
Another thing that I disliked was the character of Jade. The green clothed designated ♥♥♥♥ character of the game is not really well developed most of the time. She has like the lowest stake of anyone/the least development, yet the game features her for too long (relatively).
The action sequences (“in game rendered fighting scenes) are visually not that impressive and feel tacked on. Most outcomes are extremely obvious and anti climatic.
And for the love of god: Change the OST in the settings from Synth to Orchestra. While DQ XI lacks variety (relative to its length), the orchestra versions of the songs are pretty good.
Last but not least: This is a version of the game that includes more content, but it was ported from the Switch. Visually it is less impressive than the PS4 version, but the quality of life changes are just too good to miss out. It is the best version of the game, but not “definitive”. It will take a lot of time till mods will replace the models to improve the quality.

DQ XI is a superb experience and one of best JRPGs in recent years. It offers everything the past DQ titles did, but adds in many aspects. While Square Enix played it extremely safe, DQ XI is more than worthy of its title and finally made the series a staple in the west (at least I hope so).

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Little Nightmares conveys a unique experience which for me surpasses Limbo by a wide margin. Horror not forged by cheap scares but serious commitment to a believable, scary and especially surreal world.

Being a child is extremely difficult. You do not have much influence over anything really and everything is dangerously looming over you. Little Nightmares captures the magic of this idea really well. The main character Six is just a little child that can and will try to survive by your hand, but everything feels impossibly large to stop. You do not beat or even survive encounters, Six only escapes from one danger to the next.
The creativity of the developers is admirable: The dark places and visual design in Little Nightmares are extremely coherent and the worlds make sense in a messed up kind of way. Tarsier Studios took a lot of time to make this believable and it shows.
Every place in Little Nightmares is somewhat unique and follows a distinctive style.

The gameplay of Little Nightmares is extremely simple: Running, jumping, climbing and lifting small objects. Six is small. That means the actions Six can take are also small in effect. Only by using smart moves and interacting with the world around, the chance to see another minute becomes possible. The level design itself carries the game and Six itself is just a vessel for the experience of playing Little Nightmares.

An air of mystery brushes every aspect of Little Nightmares that is difficult to convey. The world design is grotesque and visually mostly unpleasing. The other entities in the game naturally convey the feeling of bending nature, their bodies are deformed and express their qualities with hyperbolic visual components. Not only makes this characters believable (which is the basis for good horror), it also makes exploring ideas interesting: What do these characters mean, what is this place and how can I interpret all of this on a meta level. While there is no definitive answer, it is not directly a time waste to use your brain cells to find some connections and maybe reverse engineer the thoughts of the developers of the game.

Little Nightmares is not scary in any way. It does not use jumpscares and death is more or less meaningless. The hardest punishment is “wasting” time which destroys any form of intensity, but creates frustration.
The controls themselves are fine, but the platforming can become egregious, because it lacks depth perspective. A game that would have profited from 3D software is rare these days, but LN firmly belongs in this category. Sometimes I also wished for more intuitive solution for certain problem. I have watched multiple people play through this game, but they all struggled with the same things:
Not realizing how pulling works, how and what you can climb and some more little tasks. Player direction is certainly something that could and should be improved with the sequel.

Little Nightmares is a gem of a game. While the horror genre never quite appealed to me, I only secretly wanted a more secretive approach. I absolutely got what I wanted and I am happy and content to express my interest for the second game. Rough around the edges. But the charm and uniqueness made me have a good time.

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A really good licensed game that offer decent gameplay to back it up. While some modes overstay their welcome, the game has great presentation and elevates some of the best moments of the anime to new heights.

Anyone who has played these games knows the drill, but some things changed with this title. The most important changes are listed right here.[twinfinite.net]
For anyone else:
It is a 1vs1 arena fighter, but you can choose up to 3 characters to either switch to or use their abilities in the midst of the fight. It is relatively basic in that regard, but the many different characters having unique combos, movement and other characteristics that define them, make it possible to experiment a lot with your fighters. I am genuinely impressed by the lineup of over 60 characters, despite many being the same version of the same person. Naruto and Sasuke already take like 25% of the lineup, just like in the series. Bandai really nailed the fundamentals.

NSUNS4 has multiple modes that are very distinctive in quality.
The Story mode sums up the last arc of the anime, the 4th Great Ninja War. It is extremely nice to look at and has great visuals for many of the most memorable moments. The included fights are the most important ones and are extremely focused. This means that you only get the briefest summary of the events that happened which makes NSUNS4 a place to reexperience these moments, but not for an initial impression. This is by far the most polished content of the game. It offers good cutscenes, nice fights and great QTEs that are visually extremely impressing. This mode is relatively short (around 5-6 hours), but worth the money alone, if you get the game on sale. This is also by far the best content of the game (excluding online battles).
The Adventure mode is downright terrible: Running from A to B in a small overworld that consists of places from the series and fulfilling irrelevant sidequests that are most of the time not challenging. It feels like a grind to be honest. The story content is abysmal and really unimportant. The only reason to complete it: achievements. So don’t do it, because it is that lackluster and just stretches the game time.
Free Battles are nice for practice, but serve no further function other than being something you can, but will not do.
Online Battles are the last major pillar of content, but to be honest: You either die a casual or see yourself become a meta player. A Meta absolutely exists and it is hard to find a match that does not include some of the best characters. NSUNS4 is already old enough to be completely analyzed. This means that everything has become evaluated and every strategy you can think of is most likely outdated.

Although this is not Bandai’s first time rodeo, it is not as polished as it could be. The visual representation of characters and their techniques works extremely well, but the areas and sound are relatively lackluster. At one point I straight up searched up the anime OST and it sounded better in almost every regard. A missed opportunity to include them.

Compare these bullet points with your interests. This should make it easier to find out, if this game is for you.
1. Do you like the Naruto IP and do you want to consume more of it?
2. Are fighting games right up your valley?
3. Is it alright, if you are only playing through the story and maybe some online battles?
If you answered everything with yes, then you are most likely the target audience of the game.

It is pretty good, but lacks outstanding qualities to make it great. The regular price is especially a little high, but it goes pretty often on sale.

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Lisa – The Painful is a unique RPG that combines meta gameplay with a layered story. The complexity is based on human nature and paints a sad and almost hopeless picture, yet it never does not get not funny. Except for when it wants to make you cry.

“Lisa – The Painful” is actually a sequel to a relatively little and unknown game called “Lisa: The First”. Yume Nikki is a pretty special game with a surrealist touch that was without example at it’s time. It was a hit within an extremely specific niche and spawned many other similar games.
“Lisa: The First” follows the tradition and creates an extremely specific game that contains many mature but especially terrifying concepts that have been raised to an eleven in terms of visual design.
“Lisa – The Painful” is a lot more mainstream in terms of concept and presentation.
Its RPG gameplay is extremely similar to early Dragon Quest games (and especially Earthbound), but it adds gimmicks for the incredible number of characters in the game. I think this was meant to appeal to more people as Lisa – The Painful was created by a Kickstarter campaign which reached all of its goals. It changed some things over time (for the better in my opinion), but the final product always seemed to have a certain vision related to these basics that shine through in many aspects.

The Painful is a game about suffering, tragedy and human nature. I want to stress that point, because it is not only a gimmick, but the most important design aspect of everything. There is a single goal the main character wants to reach. This single minded aspect is important as everything becomes a resource. Items, money and even your party members are limited (yes, perma death does exist).
This makes the game hardcore and not really targeted for a casual audience. While not too difficult, the game design invokes innate frustration.
Honestly: It was made to trigger you. This sound terrible and anti-fun and it absolutely is in certain aspects. Although these things will start to add up, it is the freedom that success provides which makes you happy. “Lisa” pushes your buttons to the limit and the moment you think that you can not take it anymore, it relaxes and you will find the solution. It probably provides one of the best designed loops I have seen in a while. The loop just happens to be painful.

The Painful is a minimalist game and could be created in something like RPG Maker VX Ace. Which is what happened. This tool does not have the best reputation, but it gets the job done. Especially considering that The Painful is extremely gorgeous in a gory kind of way.
Additionally it is extremely playful in terms of human anatomy. Everything becomes twisted, distorted and it is uncomfortable to watch, but works extremely well and conveys the “gross” world extremely well.
The Visuals are paired with an OST that is magnificent, but not in the same kind of way that other RPGs are. It is difficult to explain, but this is the product of someone that decided:
Yeah, I am gonna do music. Why not? And the product is so disconnected from anything I have heard before in a video game. It seems like rough drafts became the actual tracks, yet this incompleteness creates its own flair.

1. Lisa is extremely random at times. Permanent deaths can only occur at certain times, but it is completely random if enemies use these skills. This can make a run (with a lot of bad luck) extremely hard.
2. Not every party member is useful. Some are just straight-up outclassed by others and this makes certain parties way too strong in comparison. Using your favorites is fine, but a meta absolutely exists.
3. This is not directly negative: The humor is a lot more present in the first half of the game. While this makes sense from a story perspective, I laughed and enjoyed it the most at the beginning.
4. The game itself is extremely well done in terms of the first half, but the randomness made some systems necessary to allow any player to beat the game, even if they lost too many resources. These “filler” contents are acceptable, but the last third of the game already is pretty slow. Making it even slower was something that broke the pacing in my opinion.

Dingaling really managed to make a unique suffering RPG. Everything within this game oozes pain, hate and destruction. Yet this destructiveness forms something special:
A rare picture of broken humans that can not be fixed, yet carrying an innate hope for betterment.

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A fantastic experience I can not recommend enough. Platinum Games took Hack and Slash to a new (nano) level and loaded up the style cannons. Completely over the top and not a regular Metal Gear, but in this case I am happy about that.

Kojima has had some long-standing problems with his higher-ups of Konami. This meant that he never could continue his long overarching vision. While Snake’s history has more or less concluded with Metal Gear 4, Rising Revengeance took Raiden and made him an interesting protagonist in a future that has changed the tactics of war.
But now he is gone and Platinum Games became pretty successful after Nier Automata, so nobody is really invested into doing another gamer. Which is a darn shame, but is it still worth it, even if it never gets a sequel? Yeah.

Nobody really cares for the story of Rising Revengeance:
What is the next thing that I have to slash? The overarching usage of the set pieces is passable most of the time, despite remaining extremely bland.
But the individual set pieces have the power of a railgun and never leave anyone bored. Playing Rising Revengeance is nice for the levels themselves and offer decent scenarios, sometimes even meaningful tactical approaches and of course the obligatory exploration aspect.
It just does not feel rewarding enough to be actually a good way to spend your time. I played through the campaign and while it is full of details, I would use the following comparison:
You sit in a car and see the landscape. It looks nice and you could stop the car, but the moment you get out you realize: Yeah, it was nicer just looking at it from afar.
All these system related to longevity and replayability fell completely flat for me.

The answer is extremely simple: Everything that I considered to be flawed are just passable things that can be ignored, if the player is ready to immerse himself into the role of Raiden. The moment you start to play, Platinum Games made sure to get adrenaline pumping. Music, visuals, cutscenes, characters and especially the gameplay are extremely over the top. Which means that form of immersion happens in a room of absurdity.
Using this knowledge Platinum Games acquired something most people do not seem to understand:
Making a story full cliches, dumb exposition and insane dialogue is alright, if you use the right PRESENTATION.
Especially in terms of music and bosses Rising Revengeance took everything up a notch. I am more or less regularly listening to it. This is the greatest achievement of the game:
making these bosses extremely memorable, even if they have almost no time on screen. Maybe taking the Fury approach of only creating bosses would have worked out better, but these are the absolute highlights and nobody in their right mind will ever call them something like “bad”.

Yeah, it is pretty good. Just do not overstay your welcome and don’t get too attached. Trust me, it ain’t healthy. Also add the boss themes to your playlist: https://open.spotify.com/album/2baz5WbW2zCCGaGtKbkida
To make sure you do not have to search them up.

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As of now, meme curators dominate Steam. So consider following me for reviews that actually cost me some time (and effort) to create. I don't think this will change much, but the majority of my readers are not followers. I am still going to pump my heart into these reviews.
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Detention is a short horror game, but it is also extremely dense in terms of content. It captivates the player with a unique visuals and an atmosphere that has been inspired by taiwanese culture and history.
The puzzles are solid, but not groundbreaking.

Most successful products are created by people that have privileged background. Getting into an industry like video games, movies or music needs skill that has to be trained over time (which requires the money and time to focus) or even the contacts/funding to make a product. This boils down to games being (over)representing the same themes, because the people who made these games are not coming from varied backgrounds.
This is not bad, but it creates the tendency of less new themes that are not directly in the comfort zone of anybody. Red Candle Games is a small indie company from Taiwan that decided to make Detention (and later on Devotion) which received critical acclaim as they offered well thought out experiences which have been coined by the past of their country. Something like the White Terror is mostly unknown in the West, yet an extremely interesting concept to use. I recommend to first play the game and then read about it. While the cultural background certainly helps the understanding, the experience becomes a lot more thrilling, if you are unable to connect the dots.

Detention is completely playable with one mouse. The difficulty is, in terms of reactions and skill needed to complete, at the lower end of the spectrum. Clicking on things for information, picking things up for clearing puzzles and not to forget: Interacting with objects around you.
While some of the puzzles are really good and remind me of puzzles from Silent Hill (without the ridiculous factor them), but with added factor of making sense and being fair.

The horror in Detention is extremely passive. This means that most of the time you can not meaningfully react to your environment. You do not win, you survive and manage to push through. While the horror is extremely is mostly anchored around it’s atmosphere and visual design, it’s visual storytelling is extremely strong at times. Example: A gold fish means luck in asia. Later on you will see how Red Candle games made some strong visual imagery that takes this trope and distorts it.
Personally I would say: this game is not more subtle, but Detention uses the seemingly more restrictive 2-dimensional plane to greater effect.

1. Detention is pretty short. Around 4 hours of gameplay.
2. To get the other ending, if you did a certain thing wrong, you will have to replay the whole game. Which is pretty boring. Although this is not directly bad, it could be exhausting.
3. The game becomes extremely text heavy towards the end. While I see the intention of becoming clearer, it became too much. This is not a big caveat though.
4. You will want to play Devotion, but it is gone from Steam. I warned you, you will want more.
5. Some tropes related to this game have been done to death in Asian culture. If you already consumed something like this, you are going to see the plot from a mile away.

Detention is an excellent game and absolutely knows what it can and should do. While limited in options, it used these restrictions to it’s benefit, creating striking imagery. I can absolutely recommend this game to anyone who has at least one hand and no weak heart. While not the scariest game on the planet, it will be worth your time.

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As of now, meme curators dominate Steam. So consider following me for reviews that actually cost me some time (and effort) to create. I don't think this will change much, but the majority of my readers are not followers. I am still going to pump my heart into these reviews.
https://steamproxy.net/steamstore/curator/31884377-If-It-Is-Insane/

It spawned an entire franchise and holds up pretty well, but it certainly lacks the modern quality of life changes that have been established over time. Still a good tactical JRPG with a lot of charme.

I really like to play RPGs as they are relaxing, can tell great stories and have distinctive atmospheres that are not easily replicated. Yet Disgaea is a different breed of RPG that feels a lot more like it could be released nowadays.
Disgaea is like a badly written fanfic in terms of themes: demons, angels, and superheroes are all existing and somewhat interacting with each other while still being bound by their respective tropes and some twists. This is unconventional by any means and extremely strange to see, even considering that modern anime and light novels really try to capture the same thing. Disgaea goes further though and has a “heart” behind it all. Normally this set pieces are doomed to fail, despite that I found the interactions entertaining and overused tropes charming as they are being played in a sincere way.
To sum it all up: Disgaea’s design and story are wacky, but in the good kind of way.

The gameplay of Disgaea is really simple, I want to remind you that the original game was released on the PS2 and even felt dated back then. Disgaea follows suit by giving you main characters and a lot of deep systems that you can either embrace or just ignore to fight through maps that always can be selected for grind. Disgaea is in terms of the actual gameplay stays exceedingly simple.
And then you get to the systems behind the curtain of a simple tactical JRPG:
Item World, specialists, affinity, classes, learning, jumping, throw chains, chain explosions, senate and the respective bill calculations… Yes, the demons have a senate that you can influence by increasing your demon rank in fighting exams to pass bills by abusing the corruption of senators by handing them wanted items. This is madness.
While this sounds like too much, it is perfect. The main story of Disgaea is fun, but breaking the game is an equal part and has shaped the identity of the series for every later entry. By abusing these systems it is possible to reach extremely high numbers and near unlimited strength.
Breaking the game, finding out what works and what doesn’t, experimenting with the systems, this is just really enjoyable. Disgaea becomes a puzzle to be solved and every system is a variable for your curiosity. Otherwise the insane endgame that is around 100 times harder (this time not a hyperbole in any form) would be impossible.
This means that main campaign of like 20 hours is just the tip of the iceberg. The side content can easily make you clock in 200 hours and more (which is absolutely optional).

The presentation is absolutely minimalistic. While the sprites carry a lot of character, they are too pixelated. While the dialogue is good, the visual representation could be cardboard and nothing would change. Decent music, but overusing the same tracks.
Production values of any NIS game are always below average from what I could gather and it has become a distinctive style, a symbol of their brand. I get the idea and I would be lying that there is nothing to it. But it just does not do the trick for me.

So where do I start?
The game is relatively fast, but fast forward would have been great. Having to wait just to see the movement animations of every character is terrible and boring. If you have to do something like clear 100 floors in a row (this is related to an item): The game becomes a slog.
The graphics are absolutely blown away by the Switch version which lazily swapped some sprites from newer games, but looks that a lot better in comparison.
Skipping animations is included in the Switch and PS4 version and the ability to increase Exp gains more. The last one sounds like cheating, but to explain to you how grindy this game can be:
I used a program to repeat inputs I, just to reach max level on characters. Still: reaching max level with it would take around 10 hours of just letting it run. Atrocious and just too much. Cutting that time to a third is absolutely right in this case as there are no meaningful inputs.
To make this paragraph short: Don’t read the Switch and PS4 upgrades, they would just ruin your day. And stay away from the mobile version, it is even better.

Disgaea PC is and feels old, despite that I could enjoy the experience and time I spent with it. The main story is good, the endgame grind … is it’s own thing which can be entertaining, if one wants to learn how to calculate optimal EXP gains depending on time and method (which I did).
At least play the main campaign, it isn't grindy and has a decent story. Everything else is considered to be a bonus.

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To be a little more direct: As of now meme curators dominate Steam. So consider following me for reviews that actually cost me some time (and effort) to create. If this will change much, but the majority of my readers are not followers. I am still going to pump my heart into these reviews.
https://steamproxy.net/steamstore/curator/31884377-If-It-Is-Insane/