Recent reviews by .JezMM

Really enjoyable and solid game. It's a compact and streamlined Metroidvania experience, with your map always making it very clear where to go next and what unexplored paths are accessible, but I think that was a smart choice due to this game clearly not having an extensive budget for unique location design. You'll never be confused on what larger region of the map you're in, but within those regions the rooms do use visual assets repetitively, so I think NOT expecting the player to learn their way around by themselves was wise here. The hacking minigames are constantly inventive and creative - I didn't even know this game was an extension of an old franchise, and looking at how incredibly simple the original game was, how they expanded upon it here by remixing and adding to those basic core elements is pretty great stuff that is full of surprises throughout - there are extremely few hacks where you just feel like you're playing an earlier one again but harder etc.

So yeah, gameplay-wise this is far from revolutionary, but it's polished and fun, and fortunately WayForward's usual attention to character design and excellent music lifts up what would be a "just good" game to one you can really come to love. There may be a requirement of patience regarding the main character's constant quipping - the jokes are good, but they're so frequent that in the early game it does come off as a little desperate in trying to make her charming and likeable, but, well, it worked eventually because I was really liking her after an hour or so and was sad to end my time with the characters and world at the end of the game. Ultimately the frequent dialogue helps to maintain the casual and upbeat tone. I ended up 100%ing on my first playthrough because of the game's compactness making it just a satisfying task to do alongside the story. And yeah, the music is just fantastic throughout, with a "mixtape" structure where each major area cycles through several songs with DJ-like transitions. They're pretty much all great and fit the mood of the areas despite being totally different to one another, making spending time in one area much less repetitive musically than most games. I also like how when you leave an area and come back, the music continues where it left off rather than starting the song or playlist over again, which is a small but incredibly smart choice. (Similarly, if you die, in-gameplay dialogue on boss fights etc won't be repeated every single time you replay the boss - another tiny consideration that not nearly enough games care to make.) Anyway, when you combine this radio-esque soundtrack with the relatively relaxed demands of the player regarding exploration, it leads to a kind of relaxed exploration experience you can kind of just vibe to without ever being completely devoid of challenge either. The platforming and combat is simple but solid, and whenever you do explore you know you have a unique hacking challenge to play at the end of it even if the act of getting there didn't require too much thought.

Just a few nitpicks: Loading times are frequent - always only a few seconds but pop up more often than you'd expect for this type of game, and the initial startup is quite long too. Also the skill equipping system is a little flawed - an inability to save loadouts means you have to manually re-arrange it every time you want to change things up between segments. There's no downside at all to unequipping all your overworld-gameplay skills to equip ones that help with hacking before doing a hack and vice verca other than the inconvenience of actually physically doing so every time, which feels a bit off. I found myself sticking to a balanced build and only swapping things around if I really struggled on a boss or a hack, simply because while it's totally possible to swap to an optimal build for every situation, it is tedious to do so. I don't feel like menu systems should factor in to my loadout decisions like that. Just nitpicks though, far from ruining the game.

Lovely game chock-full of personality and heart. Often described as similar to 2D Zelda - definitely an apt description, but with a stronger focus on combat over puzzle solving and item usage. There is a little bit of the latter, but it's not the focus. Combat itself is sublimely simple, with the bigger focus being on avoiding damage and learning enemy attack patterns. The game punishes sloppy play harshly, but is extremely fair in terms of choreographing enemy attacks and responding to player intent - it was extraordinarily rare that I felt like I reacted to something in time but the game disagreed and I took damage, which can sometimes be an unusual thing in games that relish in a higher difficulty. The length is just right for the complexity on offer - most of the gameplay comes in the form of steadily introducing new enemy types as the game goes on and then pitting you against sequences of them spawning in new combinations and arenas. I think if the game was any longer, this formula might have gotten tired, but as is, it all feels just right. A very simple skill tree system lets you upgrade your abilities, and Zelda item-esque magic spells increase your combat options as the game goes on. It's all kept extremely simple to understand.

Beyond that, the character design is extremely charming, there's plenty of little laughs to accompany what is otherwise a relatively melancholy feeling atmosphere that pervades everything. The game's treatment of the subject of death has a wonderful mixture of brutality and honesty - it feels heavy and sentimental, and yet treats it with a great degree of respect for the necessity of accepting it as a part of existence.

If I had to critique one small thing, it would be that at first it isn't entirely clear how little risk there is in planting seeds into pots to create health restoring flowers. The fact that this was a choice made me think there might be some potential value in not planting seeds when I was at full health - I would encourage players to not do the same as me, there's really no need to save seeds in case you need them more somewhere else later on. Even if you do find yourself short and can't restore your health in a new area, dying is an extremely minor setback with no lasting gameplay consequences, and refills your health when it happens anyway.

Finally, the general visuals are lovely, as is the soundtrack. Both elements felt flawless at all times. I'd easily recommend this game to anyone who enjoys challenging action games. It is worth mentioning that there is no easy mode or accessibility features, so if you prefer a more gentle experience in your games, this game won't accomodate you. While health, magic and combat upgrades can be found, they never go to the level of "if you struggle with the combat, it can be made up for with exploration and preperation", they simply give you a little extra leeway with mistakes, the game remains challenging throughout.

I grabbed this game on sale after my Spotify Discover Weekly playlist introduced me to it's lovely soundtrack. Rather than listen to the whole album there, I thought I should experience it in context.

Unfortunately I was a little disappointed. The narrative premise may well come from a personal place on the creator's part, but I couldn't find myself invested in their telling of it here. The voiceover delivery was very one-note and monotonous, and the characters didn't really do anything to charm me. The gameplay is very simplistic, which can be just fine for a chill-out, atmospheric game like this, but the environments are so large and wide with little to do between key moments than just hold forward, and exploration is a mixed bag, with many enticing areas being devoid of content, and even occasions where I felt drawn towards what would turn out to be an invisible wall that was a bit too close to the end of the modelled area for comfort (the sawmill area was a particularly egregious example). The lack of natural looking responses from the fox when colliding with steep hills comes up far too often when jumping around such scenery, and even on highest graphical settings, there is a lot of distracting pop-in on model detail for trees and such which both ruined the atmosphere for me a fair bit. I was very much looking forward to an atmospheric game with a beautiful soundtrack and emotional story, but sadly, even though the soundtrack was beautiful, it couldn't support with the narrative and atmospheric shortcomings for me, and the game just didn't hit me with any kind of emotion as I hoped it would (and I usually cry at stuff pretty dang easily if the music gets it's claws into me)!

In spite of this, it seems to have touched a lot of people judging by other reviews, so take my feelings with a pinch of salt, but I definitely feel like I would have regretted purchasing at full price.

Lovely little game with beautiful visuals and music. Plays somewhat like if you took a non-infinite version of Animal Crossing's task-based gameplay and gave it Breath of the Wild-esque movement mechanics to get around a satisfyingly miniature-yet-meaty 3D overworld. But really the gameplay is the icing on the cake for a game that more than anything, really just evokes a relaxing mood and atmosphere that's so inviting to lose yourself into.

A fun little mod for sure, and at just a single hour's length it isn't a big time investment at all to try out, with an atmospheric first half and a bombastic combat-focused second half with a unique modified weapon. I suffered one crash during my playthrough, but luckily the autosaves are frequent. The mod includes achievements, so while it is short, there are a few challenges to increase replay value for those who want to play it a second or third time. I would say just go play it and judge for yourself due to it's short length - as such the remainder of the review contains some gameplay spoilers:

The unique element of the mod is a gravity gun that fires exploding energy balls, and can be used to rocket jump by firing below you as you jump. It was a fun mechanic, but it felt a bit underused. There are just a couple of arbitrary moments where you are forced to use it to reach a high ledge, but in combat it is seemingly optional, since the game kits you out with pretty much the entire gallery of weapons from Half-Life 2. Ammo is a little scarce, but not entirely, making the game feel like it sends mixed messages a little. On the flipside it does mean you can play with either the new weapon or have a more traditional Half-Life experience, but it does mean neither option is particularly tightly designed. You also don't get the modified Gravity Gun until about halfway through the game, which was a surprising factor considering it's the mod's selling point. It feels like the guns are there as a get out of jail free card for when the gravity gun runs out of charge, but I'd rather it retained it's standard close-range jolt to stun enemies, so you can run away and recover - perhaps make it so this mechanic also allows for long jumps for retreats without causing damage to enemies.

The first chapter was nicely designed with the darkness providing some neat gimmicks. I'd be lying if I said I didn't have to really work up the courage to descend into the pit of zombies, despite being well-familiar with them from multiple Half-Life 2 playthroughs over the years. The crescendo at the end of the third chapter felt more fun and exciting to use the new Gravity Gun, with tons of toys and traps to manipulate with it to wreck hordes of zombies. Meanwhile the fourth chapter's finale encounter felt like the epitome of my "mixed messages" criticism, where rather than being used creatively for combat, the gravity gun instead is just a means to get around and collect a finite amount of rockets to take out Striders in a very traditional manner. While two cranes can be shot to drop shipping containers on the Striders for a very satisfying payoff, once both those chances are used up, that's the end of the only creative idea the finale has.

Overall, I feel if this mod is intended to serve as a proof of concept for this gravity gun idea, it has succeeded very well, the idea has great potential. I just wish the mod was overall more focused and tightly designed around it, I'm sure some more creative things could be done and the reliance on showering the player with typical Half-Life weapons could be axed. If however, the mod is just meant to be what it is, it still succeeds at being a pleasurable experience from start to finish.

Excellent quality but honestly too hard, proceed with GREAT caution unless you consider yourself highly skilled at the base game.

While this review is marked as "recommended" I only do so out of respect for the great value for money and effort on the developers' parts put into this DLC. Each stage has a fantastic new gimmick of some kind that provide tons of new platforming situations, each stage has a completely new visual theme unlike any of the existing stages, and Jacob Linke has outdone themself with the new additions to the soundtrack.

The catch however is that I cannot stress enough just how geared at expert players this DLC is. If you consider yourself a casual player of Cloudbuilt - still have trouble with the harder stages of the base game, or just generally are not a player who has the time to put in hours of gameplay on a single stage without quitting (no mid-level saving and all), I would strongly consider researching this DLC thoroughly by looking up videos a little etc, before purchasing.

I personally found the limitations on checkpoints a fun-ruining, unnecessary gimmick that raises the difficulty far too high for all but the most invested and patient players. These stages are incredibly long, and it is up to the player to guess where the best places to put checkpoints are on their first runthrough, which can lead to additional frustration as you're forced to start over when you discover you chose poorly. Additional checkpoints must be earned by taking longer, more difficult routes - on the single stage I was able to complete I would often end up using checkpoints the minute they were earned because getting them were always the hardest, least desirable to replay sections.

Honestly had I purchased it or not, knowing that there is story content locked behind beating these stages is another major source of frustration for me because I don't think I'll ever get to experience it firsthand.

So again, while I've marked this as recommended because the DLC is not in any way objectively bad, I will say that overall, as a casual Cloudbuilt player, my experience with this DLC was negative - enough to make me throw in the towel and essentially only get to experience about 20% of it, which is just honestly a major disappointment because I LOVED my time spent with the base game in all my mediocre C and B ranking abilities.

I really hope the devs will update this DLC to make it more accessible to casual players in the near future, even if they don't allow achievements unless they are played as originally intended: and I'll happily amend my review if they do. But in summary, do not underestimate the claims about the difficulty of this DLC at all. If it took you a good 30-40 lives to master that final brutal ascent on Redeployment - this DLC is entire levels of that kind of torture from start to finish - and much much worse.