Recent reviews by Zhnigo

game is hard

They did it

Pros:
Fun core mechanic
Decent physics
Cheerful art style

Cons:
Garbage port. No meaningful video (or audio) settings, aggressive chromatic abberration, no keyboard support, game progress wipes randomly.

- Half the levels are missing
- Enemy spawn is unbalanced, resulting in a thin line of enemies slowly trickling towards you, making the encounters longer and more boring
- New weapon is unbalanced and unsatisfying
- Sub-objectives are poorly thought out
- The worst part: the graphical upgrade is negligible, but comes with a heavy performance hit. Keep in mind that the original PK supports widescreen and full hd and runs smoothly on modern systems while looking nearly the same and having more features.

muh mods

WELCOME TO YOKO TARO'S WILD RIDE

+ Yoko Taro's trademark peculiar direction, with gentle swings from sardonic humor to an emotional equivalent of getting kicked in the balls. Five canon endings requiring roughly three and a half playthroughs, with twenty-one more "joke" endings thrown in for good measure.
+ Pacing is built to keep the player engaged with something surprising continually happening throughout the course of the game, in plot as well as presentation and gameplay.
+ A world with an original premise and detailed lore behind it, which opens up little by little as you get through the plot and sidequests
+ Platinum Games' fast paced melee combat - button masher friendly, but with enough depth to satisfy hardcore players. The combat animations are top notch.
+ Pod Programs and Plug-in Chip systems offer solid customization options. Build your character into the equivalent of Bayonetta, Jetstream Sam, a bullet grazing Touhou girl, or anything in between.
+ Android butt

- Routes A and B cover the same plotline from different perspectives, so a second playthrough will feel repetitive.
- Poor difficulty balance - normal mode is too effortless while hard is too punishing.
- Treks over the open world are a hassle before fast travel is unlocked.
- Completionists may expect a good amount of grinding.

+- Though the plot is largely self-contained, those who didn't play Nier/Drakengard before will miss out on a good amount of references to the previous titles, some humorous and some bittersweet.
+- BEWARE OF SPOILERS. The less you know about the game, the more impact it will have.
+- Quoting Yoko Taro's interview, "The game will have a happy ending. Maybe."

Verdict:
Heartily recommended. You can dodge every attack and every bullet, but you can never dodge the feels.

Upd: Nominated for "Even better than I expected" Steam Award 2017

Don't buy this. Buy Earth Defense Force 4.1 instead.

It's ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ good.











Update: It's still ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ good.

+ Great visual aesthetics
+ An atmospheric soundtrack
- Very little actual content
- Awkward controls
- Only one gamemode with little variety and no sense of progression - just look at the screenshots in the store page

A walking simulator done right. A game that's very aware of itself and the player, and uses its meta narrative in inventive and enjoyable ways, unlike 90% of indie trash. Humor, horror, drama - it does it all and does it well. Has surprising amounts of replayability.