Recent reviews by Ehn Jee

An amazing co-op experience with 4 very different classes to pick from, each with their own arsenal of equipment to pick and choose from and further customized with overclock mods which can drastically change how a weapon functions. Each class brings a unique utility to help accomplish the wide range of objectives in the procedural generated levels. Objectives range from mining specific ore to hunting down bosses to locating resources and building a pipeline to extract said resources. And any mission type can appear in any biome which each have their own environmental quirks. That's on top of the random hazards that can modify a mission by providing bonus resources or adding swarms of tough enemies. The constant variation with the class loadouts and objectives keeps things fresh but familiar for hours.

The developers have also been constantly updating the game with free season passes adding more gear, cosmetics, objective types, and enemies. And despite the season pass format, there's no reliance on FOMO tactics to keep players engaged. The gameplay does that job just fine. Any missed cosmetics are added to the general cosmetic pool after a season is over. All paid DLC is purely cosmetic and serves as a way to simply support the devs for their work on this amazing game.

Rock and stone!

Supergiant's best one yet. A roguelike with amazing visuals, compelling characters, a gameplay loop with a lot of variation in builds and a story that ties into the genre in a unique way. The base difficulty is lower than most other games in the genre, but that makes it accessible to many players (and even includes a god mode for those interested in just the story/characters) and has modifiers to customize the difficulty to a desired level. Highly recommend this game to all types of players, the aesthetics and production values alone are worth the price. The action heavy gameplay with the build variety from the combination of weapon types and god boons are a great bonus to keep you in the world for many escape attempts to come.

FFXIV is a great subscription based MMO with plenty of content to justify the monthly costs. They also don't mind players taking breaks and make it very easy to catch up if someone doesn't play for a while. The story is great, especially in the Heavensward and Shadowbringers expansions, but all of them have their moments and constantly build on each other. The characters have personalities and are voice acted very well. The production values are amazing considering how aged the engine is, especially the music (most of which is on Spotify). There are a lot of remixes of songs from other FFs, but that adds to the nostalgia a lot of the content brings to fans of the franchise. Many of the designs of areas, dungeons, characters, and enemies are great as well. Some textures could use work, but it's a minor complaint. There's a good balance of original content and content based on other FFs (which is mainly regulated to non-main story content like optional raids).

The gameplay uses the standard holy trinity of Tank, Healer, DPS and every job feels fun and unique (though there has been a good amount of homogenizing within the roles with 5.0). It's tab targeting so there aren't skill shots in combat; just picking your target and using your rotation while doing mechanics. This sounds simple, but there is a lot of variation in rotations (for DPS roles) and mechanics they throw at you. There's a decent amount of variety in the encounters as well from 4-man dungeons, to 8-man trials/raids, to 24-man alliance raids. And there is matchmaking that scales players down to an appropriate level, so you can find matchmade parties of random players for most content. The crafting and gathering systems are also very developed and serve to give players things to do outside of combat by collecting raw materials and turning those materials into equipment or cosmetic extras.

Ignore the playtime, I didn't always use the launcher via Steam, I mainly bought this version to buy stuff from Mogstation with my Steam wallet funds. That said I've completely stopped with the Steam version since the change implemented that made it more difficult to log in to a non-Steam account via Steam (it's still doable, but I didn't bother tweaking settings). I have closer to 3K hours and continue to enjoy it. Just be aware that you must stick to Steam if you buy the game on Steam and vice versa, you are locked into your "platform". Codes from retailers will be for non-Steam versions.

No longer limited by the handheld hardware, Monster Hunter finally makes the jump to PC and it's a great first entry. You pick your weapon of choice, gear up, gather your party (or cat) and embark on a hunt for one (or more) of 30+ monsters in one of 5+ complex well crafted environments. Use spoils of the hunt to get better gear and hunt bigger monsters. Repeat gameplay loop until you've gotten what you want out of this game. The combat is satisfying, weapon variety great, and monsters varied (for a while).

Some streamlined mechanics like gathering and crafting and removed loading screens are great in reducing time spent in menus and more time in the hunt. But not every change is an improvement; the multiplayer isn't intuitive at first and there's a lack of monster variety compared to previous entries. The difficulty is also reduced as a result of hunters having more options in utilizing the environment (and slinger ammo), calling in help mid fight, and just extra weapon moves. Monsters have a lot of attacks, but it doesn't quite match the difficulty of older entries in terms of speed or strength, though that could be the result of being a veteran of the franchise. It just feels the hunters got a lot more tools than the monsters this time around.

I greatly enjoyed my initiral run through the campaign (with an actual story like MH4U though still not amazing) and was constantly impressed by the new monsters and environments. Running hunts with friends is also great fun, but the campaign requires everyone to watch story cutscenes solo, so it can be a little annoying to constantly split the party, quit the hunt after the cutscene, and then redo the hunt if a group wants to run through it together (I did the campaign solo so didn't have this issue). I still had fun for a while post game farming for various equipment just to collect, but eventually burnt out only coming back for event quests (which are free updates). I may have slowed down, but I got over 200 hours from this game and don't regret my time with it. Looking forward to returning for Iceborne. Hopefully Capcom will eventually catch us up to console release schedules and we stop having to wait a few months and still pay full price for older content that has been spoiled.

Another great Supergiant game. Highly recommended. Visually stunning as always and with a great ambient soundtrack (with some fantastic vocal tracks for the bigger moments). It has that signature Supergiant aesthetic and polish. The universe is also unique and fleshed out with plenty of lore if players want to pursue the extra information (but isn't necessary to following the story). The cast of characters is appropriately unique and eccentric and everyone should have no problem finding some favorites (_ae & Ti'zo all the way). Even the antagonists have their own stories if you want to explore.

The gameplay is a mix of sports/strategy and visual novel/choose your own adventure. It sounds complicated and there isn't much like the action sections, but there is a solid tutorial with a good difficulty curve to ease you into the mechanics. The game itself never really gets challenging until you apply some of the modifiers (and resist the save scumming), but the game has no failure state, which should be commended. It highlights the choices you make and the consequences of those decisions. Everyone will have a unique playthrough since the story and characters will adjust accordingly. Definitely the least linear game from Supergiant yet, benefitting from more than two potential playthroughs.

A wholesome visual novel that is fun for the whole family! But really, heed the warning at the start. Great game that is free and subverts genre tropes, recommended to everyone with a few hours to spare.

One of the most aesthetically impressive games in recent memory. The soundtrack and visuals are top notch. Everything about this game is super polished and charming. It's standard metroidvania fare, with more of a focus on platforming than combat. Thankfully the controls are solid so when you make mistakes, it's on the player. And chances are you'll struggle for a bit because the game is relatively hard (which could be a turn off for some people). The difficulty only makes you take less damage from enemies and hazards, the platforming remains just as demanding. It's honestly the only con of this game for me; that the difficulty can stop some people from experiencing this game. But if you're up for a challenge, I can't recommend the game enough.

I can't recommend this experience enough. It started as average and organically built itself up into something special. If you are going to play this game though, be prepared to give it at least three full playthroughs (which shouldn't take more than 20 hours for someone taking their time) to see at least Ending E. Each one builds up a foundation for the next and it pays off to make you feel much more than the satisfaction of just beating a great game. There's also a hefty number of side quests which establish lore and make connections to the previous game (which isn't necessary to understand the plot for this one, but will make you appreciate a lot of the lore and some of the side characters more).

On the flip side, this game has a LOT of technical issues on PC and there have yet to be any performance patches from the dev (as of 7/7/2017). The biggest ones are poor fps, lack of true fullscreen resolutions, and a white screen softlock. There is an easy to install fan made mod to address a lot of the issues, but it shouldn't fall on the community to fix actual technical issues. That said, I didn't use the mod personally since I have a high tolerance for subpar game performance in general and played the vanilla version dealing with a non-fullscreen. Here's to hoping a patch eventually comes to streamline the process of enjoying this game.

Also, a less popular opinion, the combat is one of Platinum's weaker systems. It's very level/number dependant and the combat itself doesn't have the depth of other action games like DmC or Bayonetta. It can be flashy, but a lot of the game's encounters can be trivialized by circle strafing and holding down the pod fire button or hacking (in game). But I will commend them for including an easy difficulty that lets the game essentially play itself if you want, so everyone can experience the game. It's always nice to see devs offer options to accomodate all skill levels. The combat isn't terrible, it just isn't the draw of the game (for me personally).

The draw of this game lies primarily in the story, characters, soundtrack, and game design. To say what makes the story and characters special would enter spoiler territory, but it all grows throughout the three playthroughs. Even if you don't like some aspects or characters, the transitions feel justified (empathy goes a long way). I can't say anything bad about the soundtrack, following in the footsteps of the first game, it's top notch with appropriate vocals and very unique sounds and compositions. Many tracks capture the feeling of the areas and scenes perfectly. The game design has lots of meta moments and the UI/gameplay is often shifted to serve the narrative in a unique way. And a review wouldn't be complete without a mention of Yoko Taro and the insanity that he adds to every aspect of this game.

To explain what makes this game special would take away from its magic. It's the perfect example of what people refer to as "indie charm". Highly recommend that you go in as blind as possible (tough I know) and play how you want. Certain playstyles reward you differently, but if the game was "meant" to be played a certain way, the game wouldn't have been designed to accomodate other playtyles. Amazing game, but the fandom can definitely be a bit overbearing, so just do your best to ignore (at least until afterwards, a lot of good has come from the game's popularity too). Also a 10/10 soundtrack.

A great sequel to the first game. The basic premise is the same as the first, but it intorduces a whole new set of characters (which are even more eccentric), provides more gameplay variety in the trials with new mechanics, has better designed trials with more depth than the previous game, and even more awesome music. It's essentially more of the same, so there's plenty for fans to enjoy, but likely won't convert anyone who didnt like the other game. As I'm drawing many comparisons to the first game, you definitely want to play is before diving into this one. It's a new cast of characters, but there's definitely connections to be made.

I can't recommend this franchise enough if you can tolerate the puzzle/visual novel gameplay and anime style. The writing is top notch, the story remains compelling, and it has a great mix of emotions thoughout.