Recent reviews by TM

Decent. In relation to Blasphemous 1, the aesthetic is kept up throughout both games, but I didn't find the story immediately compelling enough to try and dig into the cryptic hints. Combat feels notably less solid than Blasphemous 1, as the vast majority of the time you're encouraged to dodge rather than parry. I stuck with the single sword the entire game and only switched to the others for puzzles, so it felt less like a fluid arsenal and more like I had two niche side mechanics. I prefer the first game overall, but 2 probably has better platforming.

Game is okay, focuses much more on mechanical dungeon crawling than story for the most part. Some of the new characters are interesting, some aren't.

The reason I'm giving this a negative review is due to one singular stupid bug. If your audio device switches at any point during your play session (your headphones die, something gets unplugged, etc) you are now unable to save your game. If you attempt to save your game anyway, you softlock. This wouldn't be a big deal if MS had the decency to put any sort of auto save into the game. But given that the "Can't save" Jail Trial is so valuable it's easy to go an hour or more without saving, and then lose that to a bug that is so ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ easy to fix.

I laughed. I cried. I felt euphoria and I felt the depths of despair.

Muv-Luv Alternative is ultimately a highly personal story focused on moving forward through loss and hardship. And because of that, I genuinely believe that I grew as a person because of my experience with Muv-Luv. What makes the game exceptional is not its ideas, but its execution. Nothing in this story is some mind bending plot twist or insanely complex character writing. Nothing is strictly novel here, but what makes it so good is how all the pieces fit together. It’s the superb voice acting, the incredible translation, the distinctive art, the evocative music, and the stunning choreography.

It's not flawless: there are some pacing issues with info-dumping and what amounts to background exposition, but Muv-Luv Alternative's highs are enough for me to give it a resounding score and a place among my favorite stories of all time. Besides, if you're on this store page, you've almost definitely checked out Extra and Unlimited already. If you've played them already, I can't think of a single good reason for you to not experience one of the most consistently emotional stories I've ever read.

Seriously, go rewatch Sadogashima's laser fire and feel the euphoric relief and hope in your heart. Rewatch the CO's speech before the final raid space launch and tell me you aren't clinging onto every ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ word. Feel the utter despair as Extra!Sumika's strewed and scattered diaries tragically paint the picture of her desperate attempt to remember, made all the more bitter because we already know she failed.

Now leave the reviews before you get spoiled for real.

Karlach my beloved

I'm genuinely bewildered this didn't succeed, even in a niche. The writing is pleasantly complex, layered, and full of symbolism; the characters have growth and are memorable, and the artwork is very expressive. The music is nice and it sets up a good atmosphere the majority of the time - though be aware it has some minor jumpscares throughout.

That said, the gameplay leaves something to be desired. Some of the puzzles are weirdly obtuse, and the chase scenes are mostly not great (with exceptions, the last one with Enjel was especially good). So, make your own choice. What matters to you more? Writing, or moment-to-moment gameplay? I enjoyed Pocket Mirror immensely, but not everyone will.

A pretty shaky English translation and no controller support or key remapping, but an interesting take on bump combat and a surprisingly decent story arc.

This could have been a great puzzle platformer, but the physics engine does not lend itself to a precision platformer. You accelerate very quickly and decelerate very slowly. I do think there's a decent basis here though so if you think you might enjoy it, it's cheap to try.

"The narrator will constantly urge you in one direction, but you must ask, 'Why? Why am I following his directions?'"

I was sold when reading this sentence. This, to me, implies that we're going to see some moral ambiguity and choice or some sinister revelation. Unfortunately, it didn't end up being this. The narrator just gets annoyed and yells at you if you don't follow the literal arrows in the background. The effective story is very simplistic and one-dimensional. The ending seems like it could go somewhere interesting, but it kind of just cuts itself off.

If you wish Metal Gear Rising was a side-scrolling beat-em-up with a Stanley-Parable-from-Wish narrator it's pretty cheap and might be worth a try, but don't come in expecting what isn't there.

Nothing prepared me for this.

I've played this game for about 50 hours on the mobile client, and honestly for a game still in development, it rules. First and perhaps most importantly, the game isn't permadeath by default. You get to start over with the same character at the same level, and the enemies scale up retroactively. The class diversity is good, the different possible playstyles vary wildly without forcing the variation on you, and most enemies have unique mechanics that make them something other than reskinned versions of each other.

I also like the dungeon system a lot. Each of the (currently) 4 dungeons has a unique long-term purpose. For example, the Caves dungeon gives you lots of minerals you need to upgrade your items, while the library-like Castle dungeon has bookshelves that give you quest exp you can spend on special perks.

There are microtransactions, but I've gotten through the game so far quite easily without them, and the pack sizes are very player-friendly and not abusively priced. An upgrade requires 500 VIP points, you can buy exactly 500. None of that 480 crap that a lot of cheap multiplayer games pull.

There's no story or ending yet, but from what I can tell that's coming eventually, and the PC client is pretty decent for day one. You'll start to recognize certain rooms as it pulls from a bank of them, and It's currently lacking a few QoL hotkeys, but I highly recommend this as a free grid-based strategy roguelike.