Recent reviews by AppleShy

I'm a massive fan of Danganronpa, DRV3 in particular being one of my top 5 games of all time. Unfortunately, none of Kodaka's works post-DR ever clicked for me. I really tried to enjoy Raincode but it wasn't it, sadly. Ever since the announcement, Hundred Line looked just so genuinely unhinged that I saw potential in it to FINALLY be the one.

And BOY, did it deliver. I write this review having finished the "common route", and 7 endings out of one of the post-game routes and being 1/3rd of the way into another route. The first playthrough in and of itself was already quite the incredible experience. You really can feel the influence of both Uchikoshi and Kodaka into this work, I feel they combined their best qualities to make something that feels genuinely incredibly special.

The gameplay, too, is surprisingly a lot of fun! It feels quite fresh, lots of really smart ideas here make it stand out a lot as a quite unique little TRPG. You can find ways to kinda break the game, especially later on, but for me, that is part of the fun too, managing to kill bosses in a single turn is incredibly rewarding when you bend all of the game's systems to your advantage.

I was pretty skeptical of the whole "100 endings" thing from marketing, but so far it's been working well, even if a couple of them are pretty quick bad ends, I honestly prefer it that way because if all the 100 endings were too long, I'd burn out on it for sure.

The worst part of the game for me is the "Exploration" board game, and also a general lack of QoL in a couple elements. None of these issues are enough to stop it from being a delicious experience that I can't get enough of, I can't wait to finish all the routes and see where else this wild ride will take me.

If you're a fan of Uchikoshi's and Kodaka's past works, you're guaranteed to enjoy this! Even if you aren't, this is a great game to get a taste for what kind of stuff they're able to cook up!
It constantly amazes me just how ambitious and frankly unhinged this game is. I love it to death, and can't wait to find out more about its secrets.

This isn't it, unfortunately. I had mixed feelings about the first Gal Guardians because it had a weird structure of being a linear game in the first half and then only unlocking the Metroidvania features for the second half, kinda forcing you to replay the game, so I had high hopes about this one fixing those issues.

They, somehow, managed to make it even worse. The level design is really bad, the fast travel system is a pain and you're constantly forced to run back to the throne to level up, then go all the way to the castle again to be able to access the fast travel, and even then, the points are few and far between, forcing a LOT of pointless backtracking into the experience. The progression is also just extremely confusing at times and you can lose hours trying to find where the game expects you to go next.
It also has a really weird random drop system for items that only make your inventory super cluttered with tons of small variations of items and it's such a pain to manage. As far as I've played it, too, money seemed pointless, and there were such basic features locked behind rescuing NPCs such as changing difficulty or changing the player characters in multiplayer, it killed all the excitement of finding new "souls" to bring to the hub area.

I lost patience and just dropped it after trying in earnest to find something enjoyable in this multiple times. But unfortunately, they really dropped the ball. It's a very frustrating experience that I do not recommend at all.

EDIT: I have since finished the game, and to be completely honest, the ending disappointed me. I figured out the twist about 2/3rds of the way into it and think the mystery is a little weak. imo Scratches was so good because it knew when to show restraint, and while this game does still leave a few questions that you can think about and theorize, it leaves very little open to interpretation in regards to the core mysteries of the game, and I think that weakens it overall.

Everything I said before still holds true for the most part, I think this is an enjoyable game that I recommend to fans of this dying genre, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't expect a little bit more out of it. Both from the narrative itself, but also how the puzzles are overall a little easy and I expected some tougher brain-teasers.

Original Review: I played Scratches for the first time last year and absolutely fell in love with it, so once I found out about Asylum, I got super excited and hurriedly added it to my wishlist.
While I haven't been following this game for as many years as other fans have, I can assure you that, so far, the wait has been worth it.

This type of game is a lost art nowadays and it makes me SO HAPPY that it exists, I've been thoroughly enjoying the experience, I can't wait to find out more about its mysteries, but if what I played so far is any indication, I'm in for an absolute treat!

If you like horror and this kind of adventure game, do yourself a favor and get this - And if you haven't played Scratches, do so as well! That game is unfortunately abandonware nowadays, but can be easily acquire and is an absolutely worth experience.

I wanted to finish my 1st playthrough (doing the Wu route) before writing my review, which I just did, but I've been wanting to talk about this game for a WHILE.

It is, in many ways, the DREAM GAME I've always wanted out of this series. First, let's get all potential negatives out of the way: This is a singleplayer-only game, with no coop option like is the norm for the series, which I can definitely understand being a dealbreaker for some, I myself played most of these games with friends or siblings back in the day so missing such a core feature, while understandable due to the structure of the game, is still pretty damn sad. And, onto the aforementioned structure.... This is a game with a fixed character as opposed to the usual big rosters that the series is known for, with "companion" characters only being able to be used temporarily after you fill a gauge in battle, and even then, not all battles offer a companion option.
The game also has only 9 weapons, though this is honestly not even a negative - As each weapon is individually way more complex than what can be found anywhere else in the series, they have their own distinct mechanics and unique playstyles.
The OC is also a point of contention, as many would prefer a customizable character, I myself would too, either that, or they should've given him more of a speaking role than silent protagonist. Although I did grow kinda attached to him by the end.

However, once you accept that this is a spin-off that is doing things a little differently - Then there is nothing but praise I can give to this game. The core gameplay is, simply put, THE BEST it has ever been, by quite a wide margin. DW6 used to be a game I really enjoyed in the series, despite the woes of the Renbu system, because of how well it implemented stuff like sieges and capturing of bases, adding a lot of flavor that made it feel more like a real war. Origins takes those mechanics and improves them 10-fold, while also having genuinely the most complex combat ever, with officers posing a REAL threat, parry mechanics, and weapons having really fleshed-out movesets and skills.
It finally feels like you're in a real battle again, rather than just a lone soldier against an army of enemies. Your allies can do stuff on their own, they can create tactics and help you push into the enemy territory. When you go up against a large force, you can't take them down on your own, you need to build up ambushes and assaults with your allies to charge into their army with a army just as big of your own allies. The feel of it is INCREDIBLE and never failed to get me hyped up. And it runs well, to boot!! Without even needing upscaling!! This is by far the best Koei Tecmo port ever.

The story is also quite nice, at the end of the day I really enjoyed the OC approach because of how it made for cool character interactions that are far more developed than usual. They also did rewrites and redesigns on earlier villains like Zhang Jiao, who instead of a raving lunatic is now an actually genuinely sympathetic character with motives that can be understood. Dong Zhuo is no longer just a degenerate glutton, and while he is still a ruthless beast, he is written in a way more down-to-earth way, believing in power more than anything else. Yuan Shao, too, is way more respectable than usual.
I also really enjoyed the mystery surrounding the main character's past and the ways this tied into the main plot, with some actually really great twists later down the line.
It encompasses a shorter time period than usual (it is called Origins, after all) but precisely due to that, it develops parts of the story that used to be glossed over beforehand, and it ends on one of my absolute favorite battles in history.

This is also quite a meaty game with the first route taking me 35 hours to complete (checking the in-game counter, as I have way more idle time on steam) and I've just started it but the postgame has a lot of really nifty features and new content, making it easy to do a "NG+" run of the other 2 routes, with even more cool stuff on top of it.

I know a lot of people have reservations due to this game's structure, and I can understand as I also shared some of these worries myself before the release, but I can say, with full confidence, that despite those aspects,this is my absolute favorite Dynasty Warriors game, it's just really THAT good, it's doing things that I've always wanted them to do with this series before, and I sincerely hope we're entering a new age of Musou games with this, and that an eventual mainline DW10 would implement this game's features going forward.
I love it to death, and it reignited my waning passion for this series. It's been a while since I felt like this about a Musou game.

Quite the incredible little experience. I came into it rather unsure if I would really like it, afraid of it having too obtuse puzzles and turning into a frustrating "pixel hunting" mess, but to my pleasant surprise, none of these things happened. Despite the open-ended nature of it, it is a surprisingly straight-forward experience, with puzzles clicking into place effortlessly and while there can be one occasion or another, I found myself quite surprised to have missed shockingly little on my first playthrough, without using any guides.
As long as you take lots of pictures with the in-game camera, and make notes of things you've seen to refer back to once you find the key or information to unlock what you need, it was quite rare to get stuck in this game, in my experience, with there only being one very specific moment that felt a bit trial-and-error-y

It is a very unique game and I really really enjoyed unraveling the mystery slowly, the story turning out quite heartfelt, with many different events tying everything together into a very cohesive narrative. Simply put it's a masterpiece and if you find the concept appealing, even if you have some worries (like I did!) of it being a potentially frustrating experience - Fret not, this is quite the exceptionally well-designed little adventure. Loved it to bits.

A masterpiece that surpassed my already high expectations. Best way I can describe this is MyHouse.wad with a flavor of Doki Doki Literature Club.

There's not much I can say about this type of experience without spoiling it all. But if the concept sounds appealing to you, I can guarantee you'll enjoy this immensely. Top-notch execution.

A worthy, if not perfect, sucessor to the original. There are some issues here, such as the 2-weapon limit on the campaign and an overall weaker selection for the arsenal of ranged weapons. The campaign is awesome, pretty much as good as the original, with a great story and excellent set-pieces.

The addition of co-op for the campaign and PvE missions really completes the experience. I love the PvE mode, although the difficulty feels a little overtuned at the moment, some enemy types are quite OP. The jump from Minimal to Average is already quite ridiculous, and leveling classes feel a little slow if you're playing on the intended difficulty for your current level. Armory Resources prove to be quite hard to get, as well. Nevertheless, it's really fun even playing with randoms and I can't wait to see the new missions they'll add over time.

PvP is fun, but lacks content atm and definitely needs a balance pass as I feel the Heavy class is dominant and many others feel useless. Progression can be quite slow, too, with some weapons requiring pretty high levels that seem to need a loooooooooot of playtime to get to.

Overall a great experience and possibly my new favorite Warhammer game, but needs some fixing for its rough edges especially when it comes to balance, both PvE and PvP-wise. The campaign alone is enough to make it worth it, however.

Out of all the Ace Attorney/Danganronpa-inspired titles out there, this is the one that easily impressed me the most by far. It has a killer sense of style with very clever gambling-inspired mechanics that make it stand out a lot with its own unique theming.
The world building was very well-done for a prologue chapter, the character interactions are super fun, and the twist had my jaw on the floor and made me desperately need the first episode to come out right this second...

It became my new personality and I forced my friends to play it, I cannot wait to see what this incredible team is cooking up for us.

My new favorite shooter, up there with DUSK and Cultic as one of the greatest in the "Boomer Shooter" renaisssance of the past few years.

This game takes heavy inspiration from F.E.A.R and Half-Life in its pacing of combat and exploration and it absolutely nails the feel of both, combined with a lot of its own unique ideas that make for an absolutely stellar experience that I couldn't get enough of. I already can't wait for Chapter 2 and 3, and the content that is here really surprised me with its length, it's pretty much the size of a full game of the genre already, even in the Early Access release.

The arsenal is perfect, with every weapon feeling great on its own and complementing each other, having their own role in combat, the weapon mods offer great variety in playstyle and the upgrades are also really fun to play with. The level design is just spetacular and I had a blast exploring it all the way through. The OST is also incredible and I can't wait for it to come out so I can listen to it outside of the game.
The enemies are really fun to play against with how the AI works and especially the brilliant "invasion tier" system that gives them more tools over the course of the game.

My only criticism so far is that, at least in this initial Early Access release, the story is very sparse. While it does a decent job at estabilishing some cool worldbuilding, it is all focused on what happened, rather than what is happening. So you kinda just spend the entire game without really understanding what your enemies are, why are you fighting, and it all feels like it's building up to a climax you lack very little context for. There are no proper antagonists here, and Dawn herself only talks very very occasionaly. Supposedly the full dialogue will be coming in an update in the future. But I couldn't help but feel a little bit disappointed in the lack of such an aspect in the current build of the game.

Regardless, it's an insanely enjoyable game that I heavily recommend, even in this first Early Access release. It delivered on everything that I expected after years of hype, and then some. An instant modern classic.

Delightful little bite-sized survival horror adventure, genuinely one of my new favorites. It's shorter than I expected, but not a single second was wasted and I enjoyed it throughout. Missed some secrets too, and with the ranking system and bonus unlockables, there's some decent replay value here as there always is with this genre.

This game has such a unique identity, with an aesthetic that almost makes it feel like a toy box, but does not take away from the horror atmosphere of it as it still kept me on edge at times. The story is rather simple, but has some effective twists and all the emotional beats hit really well for me, there were some cool ludonarrative moments that got a smile out of me.

Incredible interconnected level design with really cool puzzles, the survival part is a bit deemphasized somewhat with resources being plentiful and inventory management not really being a thing, but I think it worked well with the style they were going for. Combat is super cool because it has you constantly taking advantage of enviromental hazards against the enemies (while having to avoid getting hit by them yourself!)

Heavily recommended for fans of the genre, it's just an extremely well-executed game that delivers all it sets out to do in a neat little package that you can finish in a single night, and it's all the better for it.