Recent reviews by DJ F.T.S

Context: I last played this game ages ago - back in 2018 according to Steam - and have paid no attention to its updates since then, so it's possible that what I say here may just be irrelevant nowadays as the game has been updated. That said, my issue with the game is with mechanics that seem pretty set-in-stone, so I doubt they'd change much, if at all.

Brawlhalla is a for-profit free-to-play game - with all of the pros and cons that that comes with. I could ♥♥♥♥♥ and moan about that, but there's another, bigger problem with the actual gameplay.

Imagine a Final Fantasy game where everyone is the Warrior class. Or, for a more comparable example, imagine a Smash game where everyone is Marth (insert joke about how that's already happened).

The game boasts a roster of 62 characters (to my count) as of this review, which sounds like a lot... until you realize why the game is able to have this large of a roster.
There are exactly two distinctions between each character: the pair of weapons that they can obtain as items mid-match. Each weapon has distinct moves, and fighting bare-handed has distinct moves, but there is absolutely nothing to distinguish two characters using the same weapon (or lack thereof) other than cosmetics. And yes, as fighters start the match bare-handed, that means the two things that DO have an effect on gameplay don't even matter until you find a weapon pick-up.

And across this 62-character roster, there are only 14 unique weapons.

And the weapons are literally just that: weapons, with no real magical properties or anything.

Maybe it wouldn't be so bad if the abilities that ARE there were at least interesting and unique, but they aren't. The playable cast - no matter how high-fantasy or sci-fi their designs get - might as well be regular dudes in costumes, because even when they have cool designs or personalities, they're faltering in what is perhaps the most important aspect of a character's identity in a game like this: powers and abilities.

You want a platform fighter that isn't Smash - and in fact, may even be better than Smash? Go buy Rivals of Aether; it's got """only""" 18 characters, but they all look and feel completely different from each other, and even have some wild mechanics that would be absurd in another game. And if that isn't enough for you, people are making their own characters (or, more frequently, adapting ones from other games) on the Workshop, so there's tons of player-created content for you as well.
But this ain't it.

Context: I'm by no means a hardcore Pac-Man connoisseur, but I really like the Tengen NES Ms. Pac-Man. I also played this game a lot when I was younger.

It's Pac-Man on steroids.

Not even like this game is that hard, but it's still going to be the most tense Pac-Man you'll ever play. Ghosts will appear asleep on the map, and relentlessly chase you if you pass them; doing this with multiple ghosts creates a whole rainbow train of death... that you can eat with a power pellet, as always, for massive points. The game also gradually gets faster. MUCH faster.

Classic Pac-Man is, first and foremost, a survival game: it has high-score features, but unless you're a top player, you're going to be focusing more on just not dying.
CE DX, however, is definitely more a score attack game and a speedrun. As the classic quartet of Blinky, Inky, Pinky, and Clyde don't have an impact on the game until you reach certain score benchmarks (and even then, can be persuaded into joining the rainbow train of death), this game is all about finding the best routes along the maps to get the most points possible in the least time possible.

Though the basic movement mechanics are practically identical to any other version of Pac-Man you've played (and if you're reading this, you HAVE played Pac-Man), this is a very different game, and that turned some Pac-Man fever-er-ers off from it when it first launched. But don't let that sway you from picking it up; it's a fantastic, arcadey game in its own right.

Also Pac-Rainbow is a banger, which is the last compliment I'd expect to give to PAC-MAN of all games.

Context: By the time I got to this game, I had played the previous two Lords of Shadow games. At the time of writing this review, I have not finished Alucard's DLC yet; once I do, I plan to review that on its own respective page. This review only applies to the base game.

I heard that - between it and its predecessor - Lords of Shadow 2 was more polarizing than the first at launch. People apparently really hate the stealth segments.

And after finishing it, I have to ask... how does anyone like the first game more than this?

Lords of Shadow 2 fixes literally every problem I had with the first game - but unlike Mirror of Fate, it doesn't significantly change what already worked. In fact, I'd say it improved the combat; Dracula swaps out the Light and Shadow magic for two extra weapons with wholly different movesets from the whip - which is now a dark whip made of Drac's own blood, and that's just awesome - and you can now make them stronger by making use of the different moves, giving more reason to experiment with your whole moveset instead of just spamming what works. The look and feel of everything has also been altered to better fit the darker character you now play as, right down to allowing you to siphon the blood of the enemies you grab. It's not the Dracula that you probably wanted to play as, but it's a cool take on Dracula nonetheless.

As for the elephant in the room, the stealth segments? I'd rather take a million of those over the Chupacabras or parkour bosses from the first LoS.

My only minor nitpick with this game is that they inexplicably swapped the interact and subweapon buttons, with no way to change it back (Steam Input can do it, but not only does that mean you press RT to go back in menus, it also seems to break the ability to possess enemies in stealth sections), but I got used to it anyway. Lords of Shadow 2 is my favorite of the Lords of Shadow series, and the only one that I can actually, seriously recommend beyond "it's better than the last one" or "I liked it more often than not".

Context: By the time I played this game, I played the first Lords of Shadow to follow the story, and also played Symphony of the Night, which inadvertently gave me a bit of what to expect from the metroidvania genre, one that I'm relatively new to.

Castlevania LoS: Mirror of Fate combines the movement and combat mechanics of the other Lords of Shadow games with the metroidvania style of level design and progression. Converting LoS combat to 2D does warrant some changes - it makes the massive range of your basic attacks that much more obvious, especially since area attacks now cover wide vertical space as opposed to horizontal - but overall, I think it transferred pretty well.

That said, there's a few things I'm not as fond of with how the combat now works.
For one, in the first LoS, enemies would always be stunned and could be killed early with a grab after reaching a certain amount of health. That can happen here as well, but unlike before, it seems... random? Sometimes an enemy will get stunned after taking some hits, but other times they die before that happens. It's not a matter of enemy types, because I've seen inconsistencies with the same enemy type.
Another thing I don't like is how much of your MP bar magic consumes. There are three playable characters (technically four, but Gabriel is only playable in a prologue with no magic at all), each of which have their own pair of spells that mimic the Light and Shadow magic from the first game - but unlike that game, both spells share the same MP bar, yet they still consume so much of it, that you don't get as much value from them as you might want or need.

On the upside, this game mitigates the things I disliked about the first LoS. Puzzles are only present in one episode and there's only two of them, and all the other big problems are absent. Plus, exploring is more enjoyable, perhaps because this game makes better use of the Combat Cross' grappling than LoS did.

Mirror of Fate is an improvement over its predecessor - but only a small one. Its lows are much less frequent, but its highs aren't as high. Still, I'm more adamant to recommend this game, if only because its fun is more consistent than the last game's.

Context: As someone who's only recently getting into Castlevania, I don't have the same concept of what Castlevania "should" be as others might. I heard this game - and the Lords of Shadow series as a whole - was criticized on release for how much it strayed from the rest of the franchise, but as someone who doesn't have any expectations going into it, this doesn't bother me.

Castlevania Lords of Shadow does one thing great, and that's the combat. Playing a spectacle fighter where your weapon is three times as tall as you will never get old. There's also Light and Shadow magic - the former heals you per strike, and the latter deals more damage - and various additional attacks that you gain access to with each form of magic toggled, which add quite a bit of depth beyond just flailing your whip around. There's also subweapons... I never used them, but I'd imagine that if I did, I'd probably suck less.

All in all, LoS is loads of fun when it focuses on the one thing it does great. The biggest problem with the game is that it only focuses on that thing about half of the time. Most of the rest of the time, you will find yourself either running through hallways (which starts out very sluggish and boring until you get upgrades that make it a bit more fun), doing parkour (which is boring at best), solving puzzles (which are either easy or tedious), or chasing the Chupacabra (which is always annoying).
But none of that tedium compares to the bosses. Well, some of them; again, the bosses that actually use the game's combat mechanics are great fun (and thankfully, they're the plurality), but the ones that are parkour segments with health bars REALLY drag on, and often require you to redo large segments - if not the entire boss - if you mess up.

Castlevania LoS is a mixed bag. A mixed bag that I enjoyed more often than not, but one with numerous segments that I will dread going back to, should I ever choose to replay it. If you're okay with a 60/40, maybe even 50/50 split of fun to not-fun, then I'd recommend this game. If you want a more palatable ratio, even the other LoS games offer it.

Context: I haven't played much Classicvania... if any. All the experience I can recall is playing Bloodlines way back when I was younger, and even then, I sucked at games so I didn't get far.

But never mind that; even without having the context of the games that inspired this, Bloodstained COTM is a short and sweet, but challenging platformer. You can easily breeze through a playthrough in about two hours if you know what you're doing - but even if you don't, every challenge the game puts in front of you feels deliberate and thought-out in a way I don't really think about with other games. The restrictive movement contributes to a game that can sometimes feel like a puzzle game: you solve problems not necessarily by thinking fast, but by thinking carefully.

Another thing that I really like about this game is the variety of ways in which it can be played. Though actual modes are few and far between - you have a few different campaigns and a boss rush, but that's it - each of the first three stages contains a new character that you can choose to either recruit (and gain the ability to switch to them at any time), kill (and gain a new ability for the MC, Zangetsu), or ignore (and gain nothing - in case you just want to make the game harder). As each character has their own strengths and weaknesses, the decisions you make in these first few stages can significantly change how the rest of the game is played; some routes can only be taken with certain characters, some upgrades can only be obtained with certain abilities, and the abilities afforded by each character can also increase - or decrease - your options in approaching almost any challenge.

That feature alone adds so much replay value to the game, even with its lack of modes, to the point that I occasionally go back to it to do a quick run through, just because I can. For that, Bloodstained COTM has become another one of my favorite games of all time. Even if you're new to the Classicvania genre - I was, too - I still recommend it.

Context: I played the original PC release of this game a ton as a kid, before we all knew about Steam. I have also played the fan-made translation of the Chinese-only rerelease with some new content, called Bejeweled 3+.

Needless to say, this is a fantastic game from PopCap's oldies: easy to learn and hard to master gameplay, with several unique challenges in the Quest Mode, and a bunch of other great modes of play for just about any gamer, from arcadey to relaxing. The soundtrack also has a bunch of memorable pieces, like most of the unlockable modes' tracks.
The ability to swap gems without waiting for another match to complete drastically speeds up the game compared to its predecessors, allowing for a higher skill ceiling for those willing to invest the time to get good at it.

Bejeweled 3 is not only my favorite puzzle game, but also among my favorite games of all time, simply for how enjoyable it is to play, the breadth of modes within, and the history that I've had with it. I suggest you check out the aforementioned Bejeweled 3+... and then buy this version so you can get the Steam achievements. Even if you don't want to play Bejeweled 3+, this version is still a perfectly good release of the game, even without fan patches.

There was the occasional oddity with level design or controls, but these were few and far between.
I do appreciate the ability to change how you use your relics/arcana/curios, and if you prefer, set all of them to different buttons. It shows that this game isn't afraid to deviate from retro-styled gaming for the sake of good game design, a lesson many other companies need to learn when reviving old games or making new ones like said old games.
The graphics and sound are both amazing, theoretically looking and sounding like an NES/Famicom game.
The variety in characters is also welcome, with 4 playable characters in total being developed. As of this writing, 3 of them are available. You can choose from the main character Shovel Knight in the main adventure, who plays kinda like Scrooge McDuck from the DuckTales NES game for those who played that game; and 2 of the main villains; Plague Knight, who plays a sort of side-story and is much stronger at the cost of fairly difficult handling, and Specter Knight, who plays through a prequel to the main adventure and is much more agile, almost ninja-like.
I spent something like 60 hours on this game, and it is a truly amazing experience that I would not hesitate to put on a "best of all time" list of games.