Recent reviews by thenoble1

I have been following this game since its first demo in Feb '22 and am so stoked it's finally here! Cute metroidvania with a good upgrade system and fun combat with engaging bosses. I'm so proud of how far it's come!

Ribby Rocket is a thrilling and story-rich action platformer about a frog with a will for revenge and a rocket launcher that shoots wherever it wants, but has unlimited ammo so it is what it is. The level design is inspired and memorable, I loved the landmarks such as the log. Each level had me on the edge of my seat and desperate to see what boss Aaron From had come up with next. I can tell he spent a lot of time testing and polishing this experience to be as tight and well executed as possible. In particular I loved the driving levels and the puzzles that involved using the pink jump pads. They were a breeze, but man were they fun.

I know it's a little early to call, but Ribby Rocket is maybe my contender for game of the year. It's rare to see such a diamond in the rough shine so bright and yet, in the of our Lord 2021 Steam continually proves that giving every developer a chance lets the garden flourish with luscious tomatoes.

Thanks Aaron for the chance to play this absolute banger of an indie darling. I think it'll be cemented in the history books next to The Witness, Super Meat Boy, and Escape from Tarkov.

10/10, would play again.

Can't recommend this until they allow offline play with AI. It's obviously functional in the game as it's part of the tutorial. Not a high enough population to find games so it's essentially unplayable.

EDIT: Devs added bots! The game is much more accessible now. Thanks for listening to your customers :)

This game has a ton of potential but the day one issues were too much for a $35 price tag. Getting stuck on item boxes, game being unplayable after character creation, being logged out in the same battle over and over and having to replay it again and again. They've been fast at patching issues and I have no doubt that this game will be great soon but now is not that time.

Also the pacing at the start of the game is really bad. Much like a regular Pokemon game you get your starter and head off to the first city. In those games you have a blend of wild battles and trainer battles, but due to the layout of the map only about half the battles are required (~5/10). In Temtem you have to do *every single one*, and doing that many trainer battles back to back was exhausting when I just wanted to get out and start exploring and learning about the world.

Some tweaks to the pacing and a bit more stable code base would make this game great but at this exact moment I can't recommend it. Refunded it but I definitely plan on checking it out again in a month or two once the launch hiccups have been ironed out.

Already disliked the disgustingly grindy gameplay, shady business practices, and buggy releases -- now you've gone and banned someone showing off things that could be fixed to benefit other players because you can't handle criticism. Studio WC is a joke and the games they put out prove it.

Big rant incoming, but first some quick quips. Visuals are great, rumble features are awesome. Full screen, vsync on causes issues if you have a monitor that is faster than 60hz or wider than 16:9. You can't use the analog stick to control the game (which I don't mind, dpad feels better, but still it's 2018, what on earth?)

NOW it's rant time.

Lumines is my favorite puzzle game of all time. While the series has added skins and quirky one-off mechanics throughout the years, the first 10 games in the series maintained the same core strategy loop, and it was addictive and strategic. In Lumines: Puzzle & Music, there was a seemingly minor but very strategically significant change in how special blocks work. In all versions, special blocks will clear other blocks of the same color as it so long as the blocks are connected in an unbroken chain. You can use this to clear a small area or almost the whole board depending on where you put them.

In all the gmaes except Puzzle & Music, these blocks lay inert until they are entered into a capture square, then activate and enable their ability to clear out massive amounts of same-colored blocks. In Puzzle & Music, the blocks activate as soon as they touch a single block of the same color, meaning you can remove as little as two blocks if you place poorly. Not only does this lower the potential number of blocks cleared, but it prevents you from storing special blocks throughout the stage to later trigger them in enormous chain reaction clears.

This version of Lumines, pitched as nothing more than a remaster of the first game with some additional challenges, instead co-opts Puzzle & Music's changes to the Special Block as well, making this less HD Lumines and more a Lumines 1 skin pack for Puzzle & Music.

Puzzle & Music is not a bad game. It's in the middle of the pack as far as aggregated reviews for Lumines games go. It had sharp visuals and was a major blessing, bringing on the original director to be able to have another go at his beloved franchise. But it's different, it's not Lumines 1, or Lumines Live!, or Lumines: Electric Symphony, or any other Lumines game.

This game looks like Lumines 1. It sounds like Lumines 1. But it is Puzzle & Magic at its core. It's not Lumines Remastered like the title suggests.

I've sought a refund and emailed Enhance Games, since Resonair has no way to publicly contact them. If you're looking for the experience that started it all brought into the world of 4K, this isn't that game. If they change the behavior back or put in a toggle to enact the classic behavior, I'll remove this review and re-buy the game again. Until then, this is a pass from me.

The art is great, absolutely phenomenal. Very fluid animations and bright colors that pop well, including well telegraphed enemies and resources. Unfortunately that's where my praise ends.

Day 1 DLC, even if it's cosmetic, is never alright. It's reviled in the AAA industry and if it becomes a practice the indie scene adopts, well there's no hope for us anymore (although I'm not surprised, given this is published more or less by IGN, considering they own Humble now).

Controller is hardly functional in menus, it seems like it polls for an input every frame. This means that you can't really select menu options well at all unless you switch between mouse and keyboard, which is horribly inconvenient for playing on the couch. This applies to any menu, including dialog options in game.

The block building mechanic is kind of frustrating and tedious from the bit that I've played, and the combat is wholly ininspired (although there are a few neat mechanics for maximizing your damage early on. Each level ultimately ends in a tower-defense/survival style phase where you set blocks and prep for increasingly large waves of enemies. The puzzles are much better than this, and it's a shame that so much time is dedicated to it.

Ultimately, this wasn't what I was expecting given the descrpition, the game is very buggy, and I feel less than comfortable putting money in IGN's pocket Even with the 25% discount and some Steam wallet credit to put towards this game, I don't feel it was worth the buy and I'll be refunding.

The incline has arrived. Gone are the days of no new blobbers to hold you over. Grimoire is dense, satisfying, and has left my sape brain dripping straight from my audioholes.

This game is fun but good luck being able to handle the sheer, aggressive idiocy in QM long enough to be able to play ranked.

I've been crying for like 30 minutes straight. The game is only just under 2 hours long. At least 25% weeping, guaranteed.