Recent reviews by clees

You know, I'd be completely okay with spending $70 for a TCG game, and would tell everyone else that Vanguard is genuinely fun and super enjoyable. I'd even be fine with paying even more for the extra DLC that's coming out soon that'll contain new sets of cards! Vanguard is still a fairly niche TCG overall, so this would be a great way to introduce players to it or present an alternative for players who can't afford the physical TCG cards or don't have any local game stores or friend groups to play with.

But I can't justify it when the product is in this state.

Bugs causing multiple fan favorite decks to go from repeatedly activating once per game skills and making other decks simply not work properly or be playable at all, extremely poor translation and proofreading (every time i boot the game up i feel like i find at least like, 5 more typos), a slew of performance issues and poor optimization, ranked ladder being a complete mess with constant DCing and extremely long queues even when I know other people are queuing, etc. Even if you do get into a game, there are a bunch of ways your opponent can softlock you or put you into a draw so if they're a bad actor, you're screwed anyways. And these are just bugs/oversights!

No cross-play with Switch players, no spectating mode, region-locking rooms/ranked (i understand this can be bypassed by changing your download region, but this is still just unacceptable), being nearly 4 sets behind the TCG in Japan, and absolutely zero discount of any kind for players who bought Dear Days 1 and spent a lot of money on DLC only for it to just be included for free in this version after completely stopping updates for DD1.

Vanguard has been my fixation for the past few months, and it pains me that this absolute mess is all I have when people ask me how to get into the TCG. Honestly, there are other free, unofficial clients that are active that i would recommend infinitely more. It's a real shame that this is the only play to officially play Vanguard online.

If you have any other alternative available for you to enjoy Vanguard, I would highly advise avoiding this game completely.

game make u go zoom and dopamine explosion

goty 2022

Celeste really surprised me. I can't say I expected a challenging platformer to also have one of the simplest, yet greatest stories in a game.

The controls of the game feel very tight. There's been very little times where when I mess up it isn't my fault completely. Controls are very responsive, and the levels are very well designed. There was never any point where I thought any one jump was completely impossible, and because the game respawns you at the start of a screen (a la super meat boy), it never ends up feeling frustrating as you can very quickly jump back in and try again. The game's difficulty stays challenging, but never reaches levels where you just get bored/frustrated like in common challenging platformers. Can't particularly speak for the post-game/B-side stages, but if the level design stays the same I have no doubt it will feel similar.

The game really respects the ability for the player to improve. No matter what screen, I never got stuck for more than a few minutes until I finally succesfully completed a screen. The game also rewards exploration, to an outstanding degree. I can't say I wasn't suprised when the first time I went through a level, I had only collected 13/20 collectibles even when I thought I searched everywhere.

The atmosphere is brilliant, blending the artstyle and the soundtrack awesomely. The soundtrack, by itself, is excellent. It always fit the area's theme, and even works great as a stand-alone for when you want to listen for some nice instrumental chiptune music. The sprite work is very reminiscient of common metroidvania games, which is well done, but nothing special. However, there's small quirks in the character portriats when speaking, and pictures that really give it a unique style, being pretty cute.

The story was what really caught me off guard, though. Maybe because it hits personally, but it was very heartwarming and had themes that everyone should at least try and practice. Don't really want to spoil anything, but I was really satisfied by it and enjoyed it. I completed the main story in ~8 hours, and still have loads of collectibles/alternate stages to go through. There's a nice amounr of content here.

Overall, this is one of the best indie platformers to come out in a long while, rivaling (and maybe even beating) games such as Super Meat Boy, The End is Nigh, Shovel Knight, etc. If you have a spare $20 left over, I'd definitely recommend it.

Battle Chef Brigade is a hectic combination of match 3 games, platforming, and Monster Hunter tied up together with a quirky plot and fun characters. The gist of the main part of the game is: you're given an enemy you must use or suffer a large penalty, you go out and hunt monsters in an action platformer, collect their parts to use as ingredients, and then cook the ingredients too perfection using a surprisingly in depth match 3 game in order to present them to up to 3 judges, each having their own preferences.

The action platforming part of the game is rough around the edges. The combat felt fairly unsatisfying, as monsters didn't have any sort of tell as to when they attacked, leaving the game to be all about timing when fighting a large monster such as a Hydra or a Dragon.

The cooking part, however, is very fun. While it starts off slow, it quickly becomes pretty hectic as you have to manage multiple ingredients together, while being pressured with a time limit that goes by faster than you'd think. This is accompanied by small taunts between you and your competitor which give the game a lot of flavor. The game also managed to stay fresh by constantly adding new items to the shop that can give bonuses depending on certain conditions being met. There's a vast amount of items you can use to change your loadout, making optimizing it very fun.

The game, however, seems to be fairly short, but this is mitigated by their daily cook-offs adding re-playability to the game. While playing on normal mode, I encountered a few difficulty spikes compared to the rest of the game, but never really felt frustrated, usually breezing through my opponents even when playing poorly.

Battle Chef Brigade rewards experimentation, and presents a fairly open approach to the game. It's perfectly viable to exclusively cook with vegetables and never do any fighting. If you don't want to deal with some of the Match 3 mechanics, you can buy items to nullify them. It's very open in how you play the game.

Overall though, $20 is definitely worth it for this title, and I'd recommend it if you find any interest in it. Don't expect a robust combat system, but puzzle game fans will love this.

OneShot is one of the best PC games i've played in a long time. There's not a lot I can say about it without spoiling the game.
However, the puzzles are some of the most creative, innovative i've seen in a piece of media. You have to litterally "think outside the box". Some of these puzzles were just uncredible.
The story tugged at my heart, and I actually ended up crying at the end.
The characters, while seemingly simple, are both well designed and likeable.

If you have a few hours to kill, i'd highly recommend this game, it's a masterpiece in my eyes.