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02-04-2025 , 03:16 PM
I've recently had a long streak of unfinished games (might mention them in the other thread), but I finally managed to pull one off

Star Wars Jedi: Survivor

I think it was Yathzee who made a distinction between games that grab your attention and keep you engaged and ones that you just turn your brain off for and grind on. Survivor pulls an interesting trick: with its demanding combat, metroidvania-style exploration and various puzzles, it seems like it would be the first kind, but is actually best enjoyed as the second.

While it does offer a wide variety of options and challenges, combat, exploration and puzzles feel very shallow if you focus on them really hard. However, if you just zone out and keep playing, time passes by quickly and you end up enjoying yourself.

In more technical terms, the game is very competently made. I heard its performance was abysmal at launch, but playing it now it was mostly fine, with an exception of 2 crashes over my 40hrs of gameplay. Everything looks great and is put together well. I was a bit worried that the metroidvania aspect would be lost due to a changed structure (more open-world-ish) and the fact that you start with all the abilities from the first game, but no, there are still (new) ability gates and cleverly connected areas.

What was lacking for me was the motivation to explore - due to its increased scope, the game has A TON of fluff like cosmetics, music tracks and other collectibles. For someone who never changes the default appearence of their character, this meant that the exploration didn't really offer any meaningful rewards. In my opinion, the increased scope should also mean deeper RPG elements. That being said, the exploration itself could be considered a decent reward, as there are some really cool side areas hidden away from the beaten path.

Story was... ok, I don't really care for Star Wars or this cinematic style of storytelling in games in general, but it wasn't completely bland and there were some cool moments.

The weirdest and least polished aspect of the game is its difficulty. I was playing on the 2nd hardest, Jedi Master, after reading some horror stories about Grandmaster being absurdly punishing. As such, the game was very easy, it honestly took me hours to even die for the first time. There were, however, many weird difficulty spikes, where I would get stuck for a long time before and after completely cruising. These spikes were mostly related to beast-type enemies: they mostly use unparriable attacks and the combat really does not work well when focused on dodging. Combat against humanoids was much better, very similar to the first game, but with some cool new stances and abilities.

Overall, I had a decent time with the game, although not always and by the end I was definitely read for it to be over. I even intentionally skipped some big sidequest storylines just to be finished already. As such, I cannot give it more than 6.5/10, but I imagine that a big Star Was fan would enjoy it much more.
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02-11-2025 , 04:23 PM
Zelda II - The Adventure of Link

Have been working through this one for a while. Did try to pick the game up back in the early 00's when I got the Zelda collector's disc for the GameCube, but while I got on with the original and Ocarina of Time from that, this one never clicked, but fairly recently I stumbled across people speedrunning the game, not really sure who first initially, but it rekindled my interest in it as something to play. And it's a fun play - it has a lot of challenge even if you know what you are doing, I do not know how this would have been to play back at the time where you couldn't just look at a guide, but I think there's enough hints and pointers to allow you to beat it in the end, although it's hard. And it's not hard in an unfair way, if you die it is generally because you suck and not because the game is cheesing you.

Pretty hard and unfair to compare this to the rest of the series, as it is so out of character with what the series developed into, but looking at it from a stand alone perspective from a 2025 viewpoint, I think it's still very much worth a play if you are one to look back at retro games and consider what still holds up to some extent, if you only started playing games recently and only look at AAA titles then you probably won't get much mileage out of it.

I'll probably keep running it for the time being. I want a 100% run without continues. I currently only have one in just under three hours with several game overs. Unsure if I'll keep playing after that, if I can finally put Tetris to bed will likely determine what I play from there
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02-18-2025 , 01:57 AM
Nice, Zelda 2 is epic and highly underrated when people compare Zelda games, NES games, or retro games in general. I grew up a generation after the NES but I did go back and play through this one as a teenager, and enjoyed every bit of it. The graphics and gameplay are kinda frustrating, and you die a lot, but the sense of progression and adventure is awesome, especially for being on a console as limited as the NES. The music is also fantastic and has a nice charm.

People like to say it sucks and compare it to other Zelda games, which are of course all awesome in their own rights, but I wouldn’t think it’s fair to say its dead last for Zelda games or like a black sheep of the franchise. I will say this, if I were to pick a video game that makes me wanna have the feeling of “I miss the 80s” the most, I would probably pick Zelda 2, because it’s one of those games where the fun stands the test of time and it feels oddly wholesome all the way through.
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02-26-2025 , 12:31 PM
Star Ocean: The Second Story R

Remake of the 1998 JRPG. Every about it was really solid - story, combat, visuals, characters, voice acting, and some interesting skill/job systems.

As good as it was, I always felt like, in lots of areas, with a little more tweaking it could have been really great. Could just be my personal preferences though.

It's obviously meant to be replayed - you can start as 1 of 2 characters, and there are numerous party members that you're able (or unable) to recruit depending on your choices.

Can't see myself playing it again. Still, fun game - 7/10
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04-09-2025 , 06:21 PM
Metaphor: ReFantazio

Actual gameplay, characters, mechanics - very good.
Amount of cut scenes/railroading - infuriating.

I know this style of game is really some peoples thing, but I actually want to play, not just be shoved between video clips with the odd meaningless dialogue option thrown in.

Got 55hrs supposedly logged playing (well, watching!), so if I don't rage-delete it, will likely finish it off later this week...
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04-19-2025 , 05:05 AM
Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown

Metroidvanias are of course mainly focused on exploration, but primary methods of progressing through the world can be focused on platforming, puzzles and combat. That last category can be further divided between different styles of combat, with most dominant in recent years being reactive, soulslike and beat-em-up approaches. Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown tries to fit into all above categories at once and, surprisingly, mostly succeeds, although it does feel a bit inconsistent at times.

I'll start with a combat, which for me was always the prefered focus of metroidvanias. I really dislike beat-em-up approach, which is quite present here: you have complex combos, special abilities and can even juggle enemies in the air. However, there are also dodges and parries and by focusing my build on the latter, I was able to play the game in my preferred, reactive way. Parries are very satisfying to pull off, so the combat worked quite well for me overall.

As mentioned earlier, exploration is extremely varied, between puzzle, platforming and combat sections. Puzzles are more meaningful than the usual "use ability x in room y" and can get decently challenging, especially a section where you have to synchronize 3 copies of yourself across 3 runs to perform a complex, simultanous task.

There is one unusual design decision related to combat that I'm a bit torn on: there are almost no "fodder" enemies in the entire game. I like that idea in principle, as it makes every encounter meaningful, but in practice it means that there are quite a lot of "nothing" screens, especially in the early game, before more complex platforming sets in. Quite often, you will run through a room without nothing or very little in it, which does not feel good. Maybe the map could benefit from being a bit smaller.

I'm not a big fan of platforming in general, but I have to admit that here it is done pretty well, although it is distributed quite irregulary throughout the game: vast majority of it is in mid-game, while early and late sections are mainly combat-focused. There were also some extremely challenging sections that I found more tedious than fun, fortunately, these were all optional, so I just skipped them.

Bosses are pretty good, leaning more into scripted side of things, where you have to avoid complex incoming attacks just to get a short punish window. There were also a few straight duels and these were definitely the highlights. Again, though, the game is incosistent in their distribution - early on, there is a boss (well, typically a mini-boss with a boss healthbar) behind every corner, but starting from mid game you'll spend hours between each encounter.

Finally, the presentation... it's ok. The story didn't particulary grab me and the artstyle was not my thing, but it was competent and possibly more meaningful to fans of the series (I only remember playing one entry as a kid). One annoyance I had was anime-style attacks from bosses, that would lock you into a veeery long animation mid-combat if you'd get caught in them - felt like excessive punishment.

I realize that I sounded a bit negative throughout this review, but this game was universally praised, so I wanted to focus a bit on its flaws. That being said, it's very well made and I can safely recommend it to any metroidvania fan. Personally, I'd rate it as 8/10, but if you are someone who enjoys different styles within the genre, you'll probably like it even more.
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04-19-2025 , 10:00 PM
grime

Been playing a lot of Metroidvanias and Grime was a game people loved. Played it an hour and thought it was ****, played 2 hours thought it was ****, played 5 hours thought it was pretty good.

It is very very parry based mechanic with eventually an additional "pull" mechanic which is kind of like another parry. I really enjoy that this game is trying something different both in combat, art, story, etc. Worst part is probably just getting around the world and fast travel. Best part are boss fights. Story is what you want or to be.

Fairly challenging but never felt impossible. Really makes you learn the mechanics in order to be good. Not sure it's a true metroidvania because I think you have a pretty locked in path.

8.5 out of 10

I may have actually reviewed this before can't remember

nine sols

Also a 2d metroidvania that is parry based. The combat in this game never made sense to me until I got to the very end. Unlike grime I was able to get pretty far without really understanding how I was supposed to fight things or even how some mechanics worked. Way way way too much exposition for me in this game.

The final boss in the true ending of this game is damn tough. I will say the best part about this game is all the boss fights are very fair. Once you get good at them they go from incredibly difficult to very easy. The final boss probably took me around 100 tries but it was pretty obvious I was going to win one of the next few times I tried it once I got good.

7.5 out of 10
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05-17-2025 , 06:55 AM
In a move that could be seen as trying to replicate a Barbenheimer effect among soulslike fans, 2 games realised on the same day in March 2025: First Berserker of Khazan and AI Limit. While I definitely intend to play them both eventually, I decided to give priority to the latter - and, to spoil thing a little bit, I am very happy with that decision.

I'll start with the presentation, as this is what stands out the most when first looking at the game. It is very much anime both in terms of aesthetics and story. Typically, I am not a fan of anime (to put it mildly) and for me it was a huge minus in games like Code Vein. Here, however, I'd say it is... inoffensive. The game avoids typical anime tropes like overly emotional characters by focuing on non-human Bladers, who are typically rather stoic. The story does eventually escalate things into an absurd scale in a fashion typical for the genre, but is rather enjoyable until then, thanks to engaging setting and intriguing lore. The only real issue I have with the presentation is the color pallete, which is extremely drab, mostly using grey and brown - I understand that this matches the post-apocalyptic setting, but is just very pleasant to look at.

The most emphasized part of the game is exploration and it is done really, really well. In terms of structure, I'd say it is closest to Dark Souls 3, with mostly linear world design with a few branching paths into optional areas, but there are also some really cool shortcuts between the zones - although they dont have as much utility as in Dark Souls 1, since you have fast travel unlocked from the start. Like in Dark Souls 3, what really shines through is the design of each level. These are just straight up excellent, with tons of secrets, well fought-out encounters and obstacles and, crucially, unique ways of dealing with them. Much like From Soft, the devs were not afraid to hide entire areas and bosses behind obscure secrets - although you usually get enough hints to find them. I was quite proud of myself for getting almost everything required for the true ending on my own, even if I had to look up one hidden area that I missed.

Combat and systems are quite standard for the genre, the devs played it quite safe. What is most important to me is the feel of the combat - and I am happy to report that AI Limit also excels in that regard, attacks have proper weight to them and dodges and parries are really satisfying.

One unique system the game has is called "sync gauge". It replaces stamina and is spent on things like special attacks, spells and parries and you refill it mainly by regular attacks. Additionally, you lose it when you get hit. You deal more damage when your sync is high and get incapacitated when it drops to 0 (fortunately, the game won't let you spend it further below certain treshold). On paper it might seem like a "win more" mechanic, either making you unstoppable or punishing mistakes too harshly, but it is balanced well enough that it didn't feel this way.

This system has another very pleasant consequence - while it isn't possible to play as a "pure" caster (since you need to attack to get sync), the battlemage archetype is done extremely well here, kinda similarly to Code Vein, which had a mechanic similar to sync gauge. I build my character into strenght and magic, intending to play as a sort of palading with buffs, but by the end of the game I was also blasting enemies with offensive spells. I know that some people were bugged by there only being one spells slot, but it was fine for me, as you can change it very easily.

Now, to tone down the praise a little bit, the bosses are mixed bag. While a few were truly excellent, there were more than I didn't like, fortunately not a single one that I'd consider completely terrible. 2 most common categories of bosses were meele focused, that were fun, but trivialized with parries and casters that often had frustrating mechanics. The game also makes a rather strange decision to end with a boss rush - for true ending you fight 8 bosses in a row, not counting multiple phases (fortunately there are checkpoints). This would have been fine as a concept, but out of those 8 bosses I'd only consider 1 to be really good. All that being said, it's clear that bosses were not the main focus here and they were still decent enough, thanks to being rather easy they never became really frustrating.

This brings us to difficulty - overall, the game is definitely on the easier side of things, especially if you utilize parries, that make most meele bosses almost trivial. There were a few difficulty spikes here and there, especially with 1 boss that I struggled the most with - it's a caster boss that has a massive healthbar, 2 phases and a ton of hard to avoid attacks. I tried a ton of different mechanics against her (spells, parries, perfect dodges etc.) and nothing helped. Finally, I checked a guide online and it turns out that the best way to beat her is to just dodge behind her and spam regular attacks - with that knowledge, I got her 2nd try. Not sure if it's brilliant or obnoxious design.

Much of the difficulty comes from traversing the levels and over the first half of the game most of my death definitely came from that - but it is never frustrating (like in new LOTF), because all the encounters are really well though out and varied. Overcoming a tough level is incredibly satisfying, I can't recall feeling like that in any 3d soulslike not made by From Soft.

To finish things up, I'll just mentioned that I didn't have any issues with performance and that the game works well with keyboard and mouse, which is a big plus for me.

Overall, this was a really great experience, that was in places slightly held back by focus clearly being placed in other areas. Still, a very easy recommend for any soulslike fan and a 8.5/10 rating from me.
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05-17-2025 , 10:06 AM
aeterna noctis

A huge Metroid vania I found from Reddit. Combat is not very tough and mostly melee but there is a leveling tree for arrows I never used. The game is mainly about platforming difficult sections though there is plenty of combat and bosses as well.

The most interesting mechanic in the game is eventually you get arrows you can shoot and then warp to by hitting trigger. By halfway through the game you will constantly be in sections where you have to shoot an arrow and warp, jump, shoot another arrow and warp to it before falling on whatever is below you, and then do a dash to safety. And eventually even more difficult sections. You could look up a few if you want an idea.

The game is very very very generous with checkpoints. Also there are a couple areas of the game that are very creative, one you are on tiny planets where gravity is pulling you towards the middle so long as you are in orbit and controls are "backwards" when you're on the bottom of the planet, and one where doors lead all over the place and half the platforms are invisible.

I used a walkthrough for a lot of it because the world is just massive and I'm not about getting lost for hours to figure out where to go, but if you don't id imagine it's an 80 hour game.

9.1/10
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06-07-2025 , 12:26 PM
Hotline Miami (2012, PC, played on Steam deck)

Top down, fast paced, gory, slash-em-up shooter indie game. Stylized after the 80's Miami type of vibe, it's like playing a videogame of the movie Drive.

I played maybe 6 ish hours on this years ago and I don't think I had ever finished it, as I didn't recall the Biker epilogue. Decided to go through it from the start now that I have a Steam deck.

It's addictive in nature thanks to the instant respawns, you kind of want to scratch the itch to finish a chapter once you're started it. Not particularly long, if you're skilled at the game I bet the original 4-6 hours is plenty of time to race through it.

I've never watch speed runs for HM but I probably should, it would be incredible to see how quickly people play this game. You can play quite cautiously, or just all out crazy if skilled; I'd probably say the latter type of player will claw a bit deeper beneath the surface of all the neat things you can do strategy wise, but ultimately the game can be completed by just playing super slow and simply and with the most basic of weapons and strategies.

Overall pretty much what I want out of an indie game. Not overly long, delivers on the concept it is putting forth and has a unique aesthetic and good soundtrack.

8/10
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07-23-2025 , 03:23 PM
Haiku, The Robot

I was feeling slightly burned out on metroidvanias lately - the last one I played was Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown earlier this year and, while admittedly very good, I was also quite tired of it by the end. I thought about taking a break, but then I saw Haiku on sale and I remembered that it was supposedly quite short, so I decided to give it a shot. As intented, the game wasn't long (took me around 10hrs to clear, which was the perfect length for me right now), but I can already say that it was time well spent.

First thing you notice when you start playing Haiku is its very, very clear inspiration from Hollow Knight. This is a bit of a double-edges sword: like most metroidvania fans, I love HK and I think it's good to take notes from it, but at times it goes a bit too far: movement, combat, mapping system and even some bosses in Haiku are almost identical to its inspiration. One noticeable difference is the fact that you get a dodge with iframes from the start, but due to how combat is structured, I used it much less that I thought I would.

The meat of every metroidvania is, however, exploration. I enjoyed it quite a bit, even if it follows the standard formula quite closely. The game is quite non-linear, although it's hard for me to judge just how many different paths you could take from only one playthrough. The fact that you cannot upgrade your base damage would be compatibile with there being many different paths.

One thing I did not really enjoy was the fact that there was a dark outline of each area available on your map from the start - this meant that the scale of the world could never surprise me. In terms of secrets, there aren't that many of them, but thanks to this most of them were very meaningful, I think that around half of the bosses were completely optional. I think I prefer this approach to spamming the map with tons of not very meaningful collectibles.

Speaking of bosses, they were quite enjoyable, although definitely on the easier side. I beat majority of them within 3 attemps, which was a good thing, since some runbacks were very long. Unlike Hollow Knight, there weren't really any straight duel-type fights and most bosses functioned as set-pieces (with some bullet-hell elements), where you have to avoid their attacks for a while to get your turn to get in a few hits. This fits thematically and was surely easier to design, although personally I prefer more soulslike boss design philosophy. Funny enough, one of the very few boss encounters that vaguely fit that description was almost a 1:1 copy of Watcher Knights from, you guessed it, Hollow Knight.

Last thing that I wanted to mention is the presentation - no way around it, it is excellent. The pixel art works perfectly and music builds the atmosphere very well. The story was quite cryptic (again, similar to Hollow Knight), but by the end I was able to piece together much of it and I liked it - nothing groundbreaking, but the overall postapocalyptic themes were executed well.

It's hard to judge a game like that - on one hand I was having a great time, but on the other its unoriginality was sometimes painfully obvious. With that in mind, I'm going to give it 7/10, but if you're in a mood for a Hollow Knight clone, this is absolutely top shelf.
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08-25-2025 , 03:47 AM
Sword of the Sea

A really fun indie game by the developers of Abzu. I loved the graphics/art style and soundtrack. The gameplay was simple but a lot of fun. The only downside is the story was a bit short (took me 5-10 hours to beat), and seems overpriced at $29.99. I didn't have to pay, however, since it's free on PS Plus.

9/10
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08-25-2025 , 03:48 PM
ABZU was a great experience. Gonna have to check this one out!
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09-04-2025 , 01:59 PM
Hollow Knight: SilkSong


10/10

Okay, so I'm only 10 minutes in so far, but can't see myself scoring it any less than perfect.
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09-06-2025 , 10:28 AM
Im few hours in and yeah, the game is amazing. That being said, there are some comments online where people complain about it being frustratingly punishing - while I'm sure that most of those are people assuming that replaying HK a million times will automatically make them breeze through Silksong, I did just hit an area that felt very annoying as a whole. Bosses were fine so far, but some of the regular enemies and platforming challenges (specifically ones involving angled pogo) are maybe a little overtuned
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09-06-2025 , 10:57 AM
yeah there's an area near the top of the map where you need to pogo across multiple flowers and I failed it so many times. I finally made it once I got the
Spoiler:
floating
ability

hardest boss for me so far was
Spoiler:
Morrow Wing
. Probably took me 15-20 tries until I eventually discovered a way to cheese it.
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09-10-2025 , 04:21 PM
Holy moly! Finally got to Act 2 after about 21 hours. I can say with 100% confidence that this game is way tougher than Hollow Knight, but I'm still enjoying every minute so far.
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09-11-2025 , 10:45 PM
Balatro is a 10/10: Roffle Lite is also great to watch in your downtime as well!
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09-17-2025 , 04:58 PM
Visions of Mana - quite fun, it looked nice, and I liked the characters and the class system. However, story was pretty generic and the combat felt very repetitive. 6.5/10

Fed up of trying to get into JRPG's, so now just started Fall of Avalon. Getting strong Skyrim vibes so far, which I'm excited about.
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09-28-2025 , 09:19 PM
Got the first ending for SilkSong. Took 62h33m.
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10-17-2025 , 10:14 PM
25 hours later (87 total), and I managed to 100% SilkSong.
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12-01-2025 , 12:40 AM
Aeterna Noctis

Thanks to pwnsall for recommending this fun little Metroidvania.

46hrs to beat with 90% completion and 576 deaths lol.

8.5/10
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12-03-2025 , 01:19 AM
Tears of the Kingdom is gaming perfection. If you like Zelda. On the Switch 2, docked, it's so good. I would give it as high of a rating as Ocarina of Time. Not the impact of OOT, but it's amazing. Wind Waker, OOT, and TOTK. As my top 3. It's so much better than Breath of the Wild.
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12-03-2025 , 10:50 PM
Please elaborate what you like so much better about it than BOTW (this isn’t a gotcha, I haven’t played TOTK, just curious)
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12-05-2025 , 05:47 AM
Metroid Prime 4: Beyond

If you have a positive mental attitude towards video games (ie you like them), if you like sci-fi, if you like past Metroid games, and if you like beautiful graphics.... well I'm only in the beginning areas of the game but so far it is a masterpiece.

I think a reason the Metacritic score is low is because a lot of people love to hate games.
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