Recent reviews by blue

bakeru is fun, straighforward, and unapologeticially japanese.

on a basic level, the game is very much an action-adventure romp. you go through stages, beat up enemies, knock off a couple objectives, maybe do a pit of platforming here and there, and move on. while there's something to be said about the length of the adventure, which could be cut by maybe 10-20%, the pace is relatively brisk and nothing really lingers.

with that said, i don't think i'd recommend 100%ing the game. when i said it is unapologeticially japanese, that translates to a couple things : stages are themed around the region they are set in, but it also extends to the collectibles. which are souvenirs and 5 pieces of trivia per stage. honestly? i do not think they are super worth it. i think it's worth exploring a tiny bit to see the full layout of the stages, but i don't think you should wrack your brain trying to find all the tiny collectibles and pieces of trivia the game has to offer.

arguably, one of the collectibles, the hidden tanukis, serves an actual purpose. namely, upgrading your ship in the second half of the game. with that said, i don't think the game is hard enough to warrant hunting those down, unless you absolutely need to see those achievements pop. similarly, there's achievements for not being hit by bosses, which i think is cool, but once again, not worth losing sleep over.

ultimately i guess that is some nitpicking (other than the length of the game), because what the game does, it does well in troves. stages are fun and diverse - some are shmups, some are races, some are side scrollers, some are boss fights, some are mecha fights, some are fixed angle stages. backing it up is a relatively simple (dodge, parry, attack) but fun combat system : enemies are very common across the stages, and beating them up for coins and power-up gauge feels very satisfying. the game also throws new enemies into the mix once in a while, for some enjoyable diversity.

as a whole, it feels like a tight package, that while it could've been shorter, is definitely at least worth your consideration and probably your time. good-feel makes good games, and i do not think bakeru is an exception to that rule.

i wish i was better at puyo puyo than tetris...

a neat little game. paced long just enough to not overstay its welcome, with a great presentation (visually and musically) to back it up. don't really have much to say, definitely a more mid-tier game in terms of production that nails everything it goes for. a decent time all around!

leaving this as a negative not so much because of the game's quality but because it made me INSANELY nauseous. even with camera shake turned down, i played it and it made me feel *unwell*. i guess this is a heads up for people that can get motion sick relatively easily to watch out for that. i truly tried everything : v-sync, less visual effects, reduced camera shakes, reduced visuals, but i think the way the camera jitters about behind you just kicked my ass. i don't have any advice to offer on this other than a word of warning because i do not even begin to know how i would address this...

a better, tighter package than the base game. i eventually found demon turf dull. the game starts to blend together because it goes for grandeur over substance. neon splash does not allow for that. pure platforming from start to finish, with extra unlockable hard mode levels.

tight movement, decent design all around, and no wasted time. at the very least, worth a decent consideration from anyone.

15 years later, still a pretty fun GTA clone. only really brought down by 2 issues : the bugs in this version, and the rep grind.

the bugs part is self-explanatory, but the rep grind feels like a forced-ish way to make you do more of the open-world checklist, which i don't find particularly great in any open world game. still, i think the game is funny enough that it's worth moving forward and suffering a few extra missions here and there to see the bulk of what the game has to offer. hard to stop after any cutscene, because the game is genuinely funny, in a way that went off the rails in this series after this specific entry.

if you can stomach the "everything is brown" visuals from that era and the bugs, this is still a pretty damn good game to sink your teeth into.

the real reason to play this is last stand. the campaign is, in my opinion, lesser than vanilla (and chaos rising, by extension).

the former is still active with matches popping up over a decade later. if you really fancy it, the campaign is also right there and can be played as any of the races. but really the actual reason to get this is last stand. i'm not joking.

still a pretty decent time. biggest piece of criticism off the bat is that the UI does not scale well, making it a pain to read. another bit to criticize is that the campaign does drag on a bit - maps end up being very similar and there's not a lot of variety on offer at the end of the day

with all that said, it's still a pretty straight forward game, and there's definitely some fun to be had with unit tweaking. i'm not a warhammer fan so i can't speak on the quality of the story but what i got wasn't too terrible on that front!!

being very honest, this is still a good game but you should wait for the remaster. this game sorely lacks in some things, like modern screen resolutions.

if the remaster is bad then you can come back here and play this one. if the remaster is good, that would probably be the one to play over this.

this is a good game. anything i would criticize about it would be petty and purely subjective, because it is not for me. regardless, i think it's worth at least your consideration.