Recent reviews by jello ツ

This isn’t VVVVVV, but I get the feeling it desperately wants to be. Thing is, a tough-as-nails platformer needs tight controls to traverse its [hopefully] difficult levels. But one thing it shouldn’t have are difficult, wonky controls and/or weird physics. Sadly, Yuri has both of the latter, which makes it a hard-for-all-the-wrong-reasons platformer.

Stay away. Gagarin is probably turning in his grave because this game bears his name.

References! Cursing! Self-depreciation! Toilet humour! It's FUNNEH!

I gotta be honest: To my knowledge, I’ve never watched anything related to ‘AVGN’. If you like this stuff, good on you! But after seeing the writing in this game, I doubt it’s for me. Different tastes and all.

Still, this game suffers greatly from “Claptrap syndrome”. You see, Borderlands’ Claptrap is annoying on purpose, but he is still. Really. ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. Annoying. Most of the time. This game’s writing, references, and humour are so ♥♥♥♥♥♥ [and I do hope, on purpose] -- and downright hate-filled [if you hate this kind of thing so much, why do exactly the same?] -- that even good platforming could probably not help it. And here comes the kicker, it doesn’t have good platforming either. You might want to fool yourself and call it “hard”, but this is not the ‘Super Meat Boy’ or ‘They Bleed Pixels’ good-and-hard kind of hard, it’s just the pretty-bad-and-thus-hard kind of hard.

If you’re not a fan of ‘AVGN’, best stay away.

If you’re thinking about buying ‘YAZD’ because you need your top-down Zombie-shootin’ fix and it’s cheap, don’t. It really is cheap. I wouldn’t have it, if it hadn’t been part of a bundle [which, in retrospect, I don’t exactly know *WHY* I bought it anyway]. There’s no variety, no real feedback when you get hit, nothing compelling at all.
There’s already a better alternative on Steam. So, if you really haven’t bought it yet, buy ‘Nation Red’ ASAP. It’s better in every aspect.

A better love story than ‘Twilight’.

… and a charming, difficult puzzle game to boot!

Man, this game is a slog. You don’t want to play it. Believe me. It’s so badly designed on so many levels. It doesn’t even have a proper end. Yet, when you play, it is oddly compelling -- just to see whether you can beat it, or it’s going beat you. Still, don’t. Just don’t. For your sanity’s sake.

But one thing at a time… ‘The Cursed Crusade’ is a hack-and-slasher set during the time of, you guessed it, the Crusades. Which one(s) exactly isn’t exactly established. Or rather, if it is, the game’s throwing everything and anything related to the Crusades into a mixer, anyway. Jumps in time and locales make following the game’s time-line pretty hard to impossible. The story is about Denz, son of and himself a Templar, who is trying to break a family curse. Although, it’s more of an “everyone’s cursed, anyway, not just this particular family” deal. He’s hired to fight in the Crusades where he befriends Esteban, and hence the hacking and slashing can commence.

Gameplay-wise, it’s basic hack-and-slashing with forced Bro-op sequences, a buttload of QTEs, and crossbow shooting for good measure. The titular Curse offers little to enhance the experience, except maybe even more QTEs.
Enemies level up with you, meaning you have to flail at them several times in always the same way. It gets annoying instead of challenging rather fast. The levels are oftentimes irritatingly designed, very much not helped by forced camera angles. There’s even one level that is entirely played like a 2D brawler, for some reason. I could see this working as some kind of reference to The Olden Days™, but, really, the game is trying to take itself too serious. Incidentally, it’s failing at that, too, with stonily delivered references to the likes of Frank Miller’s/Zack Snyder’s ‘300’.

To top all this off, there’s exactly one female character in this game. Which, to be fair, could be justified with “It’s medieval war, for chrissake! There were no women”. Yet, when said female character is introduced -- she doesn’t even have a speaking role, but is mute instead.

If all this doesn’t throw you off already and you still want to play it because you want to hunt for achievements, be warned that the fighting system’s flaws make it a chore and ordeal to beat the game in Nightmare mode [the hardest difficulty].

There’s one really good thing, though: The levelling system. Pieces upon pieces are added to your armour when levelling up, and hundreds of different -- and rather brutal -- moves can be unlocked for the myriad of weapons/combinations. There is something compelling hidden under all the other bad decisions, which is sadly not brought to its full potential.

If you’re looking for a game with music-influenced gameplay -- like its store page promises --, you’ll likely be a bit disappointed by ‘Rush Bros.’. The 40+ levels are always the same, no matter which track plays in the background. The extent of the music’s influence is how or how fast certain obstacles move. So, not exactly ‘Audiosurf’-level music immersion, really.

On the other hand, if you’re looking for a difficult platformer with a decent soundtrack, ‘Rush Bros.’ could be the game for you. The only other gripe I have with the game is how the character animations aren’t exactly… well, animations -- which makes moving through the levels feel not exactly fluid.
But its local as well as internet multi-player should make up for that if you’re looking for a little competition.

That game is some stupid fun. Buy it. Unless you don’t enjoy puns à la “Oh, di-no, you didn’t!” [which is one of the less cringe-inducing ones ;o)], you won’t regret it.

Don’t listen to the people who say that “Little Inferno” is merely a toy or an incineration simulator. I mean, it is -- to a certain degree. Still, those people haven’t played it for too long.

There is an actual story, and it will leave you with positively uncomfortable feelings. Play it.

So, you liked the first ‘Runner’ and the rest of the ‘BIT.TRIP’ series more for its art style and less for its gameplay? Well, you probably should save your money on this one. There’s a reason it’s officially called ‘BIT.TRIP presents… Runner 2’.

‘Runner 2’s art style is miles away from 8-bit retro pixels and needs quite a bit of getting used to it. But the core gameplay is still there, making it the perfect sequel: So familiar, yet so strange.

With its five worlds, levels that have multiple paths and sometimes even exits, and different collectibles [characters, costumes, retro levels], you could almost consider ‘Runner 2’ a “Metroidvania-lite”, i.e. content-wise you get your money’s worth.

The difficulty is, initially, somewhat lower than ‘Runner’s, but the new obstacle types will make up for it wholesale in the end. So much in fact, that you will be thankful for the checkpoint in each level [which you can skip for extra score].

All in all, very much recommended for any fan of ‘Runner’s gameplay.

I’m not exactly sure what just happened. But, for the most part, that’s positive. If you want “bang for your buck” and/or want to be *told* a story, you should probably skip ‘TFoL’. You can “finish” it in less than half an hour and there’s hardly any kind of dialogue.

On the other hand, if you want your games to *make* you think, here’s the game for you. It’s less a game and more an interactive silent film. Call it an “art game” or “pretentious” if you must, but for what it’s worth your gaming entertainment can only be enriched by the likes of ‘TFoL’, more-or-less forcing you to think outside the box.

As a bonus ‘TFoL’ contains developer commentary and another game that originated from the same prototype. And the game is set in the same universe as ‘Atom Zombie Smasher’. So, there’s that.