Recent reviews by Injourn

A new favorite of mine.
Pros:
+Fun and Challenging
+Excellent approach to combat
+High impact story
+Rewarding gameplay

Nit picks:
-Strange Difficulty curve (some parts near the end are oddly easy)
-Some grind

I love this game. I don't usually write reviews when I only have positive things to say about a game, but I just wanted to mention how impressed I am that this games improves on so many things that the original lacked. Play it, you won't regret it. That's all.

You should prepare for the most negative "positive" review you've seen for this game. I am about to rag on this game not because it's bad, but because (you know the rest). Honestly this is the most fun I've had playing a game in a long while. The gimmicks and gameplay carry this game so hard that I'm surprised I didn't hear a snap halfway through. Yet, the game could have been so much better and I stopped playing the game because I was so disappointed.

To be clear, I only stopped playing after I beat the story and the A-side chapter 8. Before I got the ending, there were several fun challenges that kept a smile on my face despite my death counter rising higher a bird with for the sun. I enjoyed solving what became a mixture of platforming and solving puzzles. I was very impressed how strong the start of the game was. Immediately you press a button and then you're off. Unfortunately the game starts off as fun as it ever gets. The first dip in the fun factor came during the second level where you have to not only repeat the same challenges several time but you HAVE to back track on top of that. Keep in mind that this isn't a metroidvania. It wasn't that bad. I was still flying at the cloud level and the fun factor remained steady until the story end. I didn't play the B-sides until after the game because I didn't know that they were unique levels. It was at this point that the sun basically ceased to exist and I couldn't even crash land on the floor. In other words the difficulty became very boring. The B-side levels are basically extensions of the main story level, usually they're harder. What's disappointing is that these extension rarely offer unique approaches to the gimmicks the same way the story mode did. So it became really dull really fast. Sure it was difficult, and I enjoy difficulty in games but the worst thing any game can be is boring, not bad, but boring and that's exactly where the difficulty lies in these stages. Maybe I'm being too harsh, If you're up for the challenge and you don't care about repetition then you'll definitely enjoy these extra parts of the game. In fact, I may just come back to complete it later. But I am not eager to break a vehicle sized slab of concrete with a hammer the size of a pencil if it meant that I had to strike the slab with the same exact angle every time until it was basically dirt. Only until there was a hole large enough for me to sit in.

Gosh I love talking about gameplay! Too bad there are other parts of the game, I'mma just make this brief.

The Soundtrack was meh, It did it's job but It wasn't very inspiring or amazing. No track made me go "Wow! That's going straight to my hard drive".

The story was not good. I wish video games would learn their strength as a story telling medium rather than relying on VN style texts in a strange attempt to push things forward. To be clear I'm not talking about giving exposition through those quote boxes. I am talking about the progression actual story. The most jarring of which comes when Madeline confronts "Part of you" in a way that no one playing could have seen coming despite the fact that we are playing as that character only for them both to plummet towards nadir of the mountain. Just an awful sequence of events. What's most disappointing is the fact that this game is about mental health but the only substantial gameplay mix between the themes and the player come twice, both of which are really token if you removed both of those elements from the game it would feel exactly the same. I know that I just went on a paragraph about how much I don't like the story but it really didn't affect my rating too much.

Like I said, the gameplay carries the rest of the game so hard that it's spin is bent like spaghetti noodle that just came out of a boiling hot closet. And it's fun, repetitive, but fun. I'd say give it a shot, you nerd.

It's a cute and wholesome game where you steal slimes from their natural habitat, force then into a tiny constrained box, jam food down their throats, and collect their droppings for profit. It reminds me of how I was raised.

10/10 for being adorable and nostalgic.

It's not fun, I did not enjoy playing it, but I finished it so it must have something going for it. This isn't really a "not recommended" but more of a "be wary". There may be a story hidden behind all of the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, but it was really hard for me to care.

Fun at first, but it gets old REAL quick. Do one play through and never think about this game again.

I orignally played this game on consoles in 2015. I enjoyed it but I was not able to get very far into the game. eventually I put the game on hold for two years with the promise that I was going to finish this game.

I went back to it and beat it early this year, my verdict was that it was a good game but nothing too special. However, the game somehow brought me back into it and I started playing again only to realize how much I enjoyed this game.

Before this year I did not have a "favorite game" that I would happily and swiftly tell others about. Now anytime anyone asks me what my favorite game of all time is, I tell them Dark Souls.

This game may not be the best game mechanically but beating the monsters and bosses in PvE feels SO satisfiying. Not only that but you're basically able to choose your own difficulty based on how much you level up, which weapons you use, or several other possible restrictions.

I even bought this game on PC just because I enjoyed it so much. So yeah, it's great!

It's a good game that is unfortunately barred down with a very weak start. If you're willing to work through some poor design choices for about 2 hours then you will have an excellent experience that features several bugs.


Edit: I played the game recently and I came to the realization that the combat is bad. Everything that could make the combat interesting is woeful to use and even the most experienced players forgo it.
For example, parrying occurs when you strike an enemy at the same time they strike you. It is as difficult as it sounds but yields no benefit that moving out of the way (which is infinitely easier) would yield.
Also, the nail art system seems like it would be a useful addition to your arsenal but the combat moves so fast, the nailarts take too long to activate, and your overall dps decreases if you attempt to use it in a meaningful way. This means that using your basic attack and dodging is the most efficient way to fight. This is not fun at all. If basic enemies didn't give you soul then I wouldn't even bother fighting them.
Speaking of soul, the game attempts to set up a risk/reward mechanic with soul which is a resource that allows you to heal and use spells. The idea being that you have to either use your soul to heal or use your spells to do damage. This simply, does not work. In the mainland, spells are not useful enough against basic enimies to consider using. Upon realizing this, the player will very likely use spells for healing and nothing else. This doesn't even work during boss fights. The spells do a lot of damage so, ideally, this risk/reward setup would theoretically be most useful here. It doesn't, instead if you're confident enough in your ability to dodge the bosses abilities then you won't need to heal, and vice versa if you're not confident. Granted, healing during boss battles isn't easy and you do need to decide whether you heal or go take more hits(not using spells). This is more interesting than the previous attempt at a risk/reward mechanic but I guess Team Cherry didn't think so and they added ways to completely remove this decision. Instead, soul just makes the overworld really easy and there was never a point where I felt in too much trouble. Come to think of it, I never died in the overworld once, (well where there wasn't a mini boss of course).
Lastly, before I offer ideas on how to improve the combat, I want to talk about the bosses. In hollow knight there are around 36+ bosses (I am not including God Master because I did not play it) and out of all of those bosses, I'd say only five or six of them are good. Generally, the bosses struggle to be interesting in ways that aren't just "dodge the attack and spam [attack button]". This was very disappointing to me because the game introduces several mechanics wall jumping, dashing, super dashing, double jumping, nail arts, and spells, each of which interact with one another in interesting ways but they are never useful because pressing [attack button] is easier and is the only thing that is necessary. Also, why are there no health bars? This is such a stupid design decision because the bosses have a set amount of health resembling games that do have health bars. I've tried to make up a decent counterargument to better explain my point, but I just can't. Removing health bars in a game like this is a bad idea generally because you can't tell how well you're doing against the boss and if what you're doing is working or not. You'd think Team Cherry would replace this with the stun mechanic they have instead but I don't have a single clue as to how that works. Some times I'd stun a boss several times, die, and defeat them without stunning them once. It's a messy mechanic. Back to what I said earlier about there only being about six good bosses, I could explain why I thought every other boss was either bad or average but instead I will talk about why the bosses that I like are good. I won't talk about them in depth too much but The Mantis Lords, Grimm, Watcher Knight, Dung Defender, and Grey Prince Zote are all fun due simply to spectacle or an actually meaningful change in gameplay.
The main thing that I would reccommend when it comes to fixing combat is adding healthbars. Seriously, the healthbar is more than just a numbers display it's a learning tool. However, there are of course more meaningful things that you can do to fix the combat. First, soul should not be tied to health and spells. Instead, make soul apply to either combat or health. The dynamic should focus on risking safety or movement for more damage in the former or for the latter, well, actually the healing element and losing movement is fine on it's own. Not at the same time, those elements do not confilct as much as you would think. Next, create more interesting combat scenarios where more than one method of attacking has meaningful benefits and weaknesses. Wall jumping combat would have been so fun but not a single boss requires that, except for the colloseum(which is nice if a little tedious). Same thing with the pogo jump. Having to use the double jump and pogo on enemies duing the final part of the Radiance boss fight would have been so much more fun! Dark dashing is the only mechanic to receive this treatment outside of platforming and that is just so much more disappointing. The Nail arts timing does not have to change if there was a scenario where holding charge was useful and where doing so yielded a reward that was more significant than just doing more damage. The nail art could stun an enemy if you land it or cause severe knockback. The upward nail art could have been used to attack airborne enemies if the player uses them correctly but instead, enemies will just fly away. In short, you have all these mecanics, but you barely want the player to use any of them in the boss fights and even fewer at all.

Even to this day I still recommend this game because of it's world. When I played it again, the world still held up in an interesting way. It's fun to explore (for the most part) and there is enough differences in each area that make them unique (except for the Queen's gardens and Greenpath) If you're interested in a game with decent platforming and you're willing to forgive bad combat then go ahead.

Broad Review: This is a turn-based strategy game where the player must use their robots to reach an objective. There are several different classes that are used and introduced in the game each with something unique and useful to bring. Similar to Worms, each person can attack once per turn, but unlike Worms the turns are for the whole team rather than just one person on the team.

tl;won't read : This game is a fun little time waster if you can get past the bullcrap but it the game doesn't even try to do anything new and it will have a hard time keeping you engaged. If there was more effort put into the gameplay or story than I would be much more amused.

Numbering:
Gameplay: 4/10
Story: 2/10
Music: 6/10
Visuals 7/10

Overall 6/10
For a more extensive review, please see below:

Gameplay: 4/10 This game plays well and runs well even on my weak laptop, however, the gameplay lacks depth and will become boring as the story is not intersting in the slightest. Also, there are plenty of game design choices that are either bad or ones that I did not agree with. These problems include:Difficulty Spiking The difficulty curve is a bit wonky even in the short time that I played it, act 1 was very easy but 2 missions into act two is where the ai gets extreme aiming ability as well as abilities that you won't even know existed that allows them to do things that you aren't even sure you'll ever be able to do... in short the gameplay becomes unfair instead of difficult because of it.Infinetly Spawning Enimies Honestly, I thought videogames were over this. Never have I played a game with infinitely spawning enemies and thought it was amazing. Even worse, enemies that spawn in the middle of a match have a turn although, luckily, they don't always take advantage of it. This is a legit bad design choice as it shows just how much your game lacks depth and it is just artificial difficulty.Randomly Generated Missions This is another design choice that confused me because it removes several elements of strategy from the game. It's obvious this was added in to prevent the player from getting an edge but it is not fun for a single player game. Especially considering that there is no way the player can know which characters to bring anyway meaning you will have to play missions several times before finding out what works.
There are some good design choices, very few but very fun. The gunplay is interesting and the ability, while mostly useless, are fun to mess around with. Other than that there isn't much to say.

Story 2/10 Here's a story that you've never heard before, evil underdogs rebel againts a society that is being ruined by a superior foe. A very unique concept that has only been done in almost every form of media and each genre in that respective media. Like the gameplay, the story doesn't bring anything new to the table but it does little to offend and that's why It scores very low. If it was bad then there could have been some enjoyment out of it, but it lacks depth and it does nothing with the concept. The characters do not help, there is absolutely nothing interesting about the charcters beyond the first few missions, this is true in most games but this time it was particularly dreadful because there is so much that could be done with the characters in the world yet the chance is missed completely. The writing has it's moments but they are very few and hard to find because you will skip it... because it's boring. In short, interesting premise that is brought down by boring characters and an equally boring plot.

Music: 5/10 The music during the gameplay was bad, not to say it was horrible but it wasn't passible. The tracks aren't very inspired and feels as if it was made quickly and haphazardly. It also loses it's effect as it is played all of the time and there is no intensity with harder/more enimies which feels like a huge wasted oppurtunity. HOWEVER there is good music in the rest of the world, namely the bar. Music helps make a game more immersive and the bar helped build the world. Unfortunatley, it was great at best and overall, the music is brought down due to the lame gameplay music.

Visuals: 7/10 This game's art is not bad. In fact, it is simple enough to remain memorable and unique enough to have it's own identity. Everything that needs to be there in terms of gameplay elements is easily distinguishable making it easy to look at and play. It is only a seven though becuase while it is very good, it isn't new nor interesting. I honestly would have glazed over this game had it not been recommened to me because this style, steampunk, is not my thing. I do know other people enjoy steam punk and you wouldn't be looking at this review for this game if you weren't interested.

My overall opinion: This game is very well polished and has had a clear amount of effort put it and some aspects its play. However, unlike most strategy games, this game lacks depth and very quickly becomes unintersting. There isn't anything new in this game in the first place and if you have ever played any 2-D strategy game and didn't enjoy it, you will Definetly NOT enjoy this.
It may be obvious by now but I did NOT enjoy playing this game. So why did I reccommend it? Because if you can get past the lack of depth and boring story than you have a fun little time waster on your hands and I mean that with a lot of sincerity. If you play this game casually, rather than a hardcore game, then you will enjoy it.

Go on a sightseeing tour, a very linear and repetitive tour across a very boring body of water where you meet a shark.

In all seriousness, this game was not fun for me. Although the game did not run well on my PC, I do feel that the problem is further beneath that.

If you are not interested in game graphics, this is not for you. If you are interested in a game that breathes lore intrigue and has something special tying it all together, this is not the game for you. If you enjoy a movie where everything looks beautiful or you enjoy doing the same thing over and over again then you probably already bought this game.

Also, the game recommends a controller. I ended up using my retired 360 controller and everything went well until I had to actually use it. In short, the controls are a mess with or without the keyboard. Holding right trigger to swim the entire game was not fun and could have just as easily been replaced with simply moving the left stick forward and directing with the right stick. Everthing else is unintuitive but can easily be fixed by editing the controls, something you can't do with the swimming controls.

tl;dr You should buy this game if you like biomarine sightseeing tours. Otherwise, don't waste your money.