Recent reviews by Noob Jr

The purest definition of a hidden gem. What looks like an average indie retro platformer on the surface actually has the tightest level design and collectibles I've ever seen, with great music and writing to boot. Can't recommend it enough.

the mechanics, so sublime, indubitably
good game thank u

I really wanted to like this. It seems like a great realization of a world created by Toriyama which you can freely explore. The graphics are gorgeous, the story is charming, the gameplay feels nice enough.

Unfortunately the content itself just seems like the same enemies scattered all over the place and minor loot chests sitting out in the open, just waiting to be grabbed. No challenge, no secrets, no platforming, no puzzles, no real mechanics to engage with. I couldn't get the sense of anything in the world being crafted by an actual game designer, it was just too basic and not engaging.

I know most modern players are more accepting of open world slop than me. Maybe one day I'll be in a tired enough mood to sit through more of it for the story and world, but right now I'm not feeling it.

Sonic Generations was widely acknowledged as the best game in the boost formula and Shadow Generations dwarfs it.

The story is simple and more of a setting than a developing plot, with woefully little interactions with the characters you really want to see, but that still lands it above most modern Sonic games. The real writing gem is Gerald's Journal, however, which neatly weaves together previous stories to craft one beautiful, tragic tale that will likely stand as the best writing Sonic games will ever see.

The gameplay really perfects the boost formula. Shadow's abilities add much-needed variety and spice to the reactions demanded of the player, with level design taking full advantage of them and delicious bonus stages that deeply explore the design space, leaving nothing that feels underutilized.

Exploring the hub world is the best its ever been, utilizing Frontiers' design style in an extremely condensed way that yields satisfying traversal, timed challenges, puzzles and secrets using the actual main gameplay mechanics. My only complaint is that a character should give you a radar once you have most of the collectibles.

The bosses are my only real letdown since they are mostly scripted spectacles, meaning optimized runs will all look the same and end before the harder attack patterns.

Overall the most complete and polished Sonic game since the original Generations and even further back.

Lovely little game, although the interface is very minimal and feels like you should be taking notes externally to keep track of details.

Ys X is obviously intended as a new entry point into the franchise and might succeed at that. It's also the most far removed from many of the series' old strengths, with some of the highest highs and lowest lows.


On paper I resonate with the mission statement of the new combat system. By narrowing the focus from a customizable party to a single pair of characters that act as one, developers can add complexity and explore it more through enemy designs, demanding varied and interesting actions from the player.

The problem is execution, namely the balance between accessibility and veteran players and how absurdly long it takes to get going by Ys standards. It's not uncommon for RPGs to have a "slow start" but the Ys franchise has never had it THIS bad. You were always able to choose an appropriate difficulty and start getting your ♥♥♥♥ kicked in by the 2nd or 3rd boss.

The new system makes it incredibly easy to stay invulnerable unless enemies have complex attack patterns, which they don't until the latter half of the game. Yet the difficulty modes are still purely about stats, resulting in the early game combat being completely cheesable in the most boring way. It only becomes interesting to veterans in a "time attack" scenario where learning boss patterns increases your DPS.

All that said, the game IS no doubt designed this way for the sake of welcoming new players to action games, and my issues did go away in the latter half and I especially enjoyed Time Attack. I just hope future entries can revise their early game approach.


The boat is extremely slow at first and teased a potential bullet hell aspect that it never delivered on. If they are going to include a secondary main gameplay style like this, I'd like a bit more depth and mechanical exploration.

Any ground exploration is bound to feel underwhelming after it was the primary focus in Ys IX, but the level design feels especially lacking here, with islands being simple corridors and the Mana abilities not seeing much use. The most fun I had was in deliberately avoiding a certain ability to have an actual platforming challenge.

The "release line" progression system is weird because at first it seems to reward exploration, but being thorough results in outpacing the level caps really quick, causing entire layers to be unlocked at once. I think this is another case where they need to find a better balance in a sequel.


This is the shiniest Ys game to date, which will probably surprise newcomers since the world looks straight out of the PS2. The series is infamously low budget and they seemingly did not make drastic changes between the Switch version and others, meaning it's capped by the Nintendo Potato's performance.

Still, when compared to the previous 3D entries, the characters look great and even early bosses have much more oomph. Battle visuals and sounds are great, there's a bit more variety in boss music, jank is still there but I don't think it's any worse than the others.


The new system brings about a problem that wasn't there before: Because Adol is silent, he can't exactly have good chemistry with the second main character. All the weight of the plot that used to be distributed among the cast now falls on Karja, causing this to feel more like her game where Adol tags along for the ride. It doesn't help that his voice acting is so infrequent it ends up distracting whenever it happens.

Besides that, Karja was a fun protagonist, the plot presented several hooks that kept me going and it culminated in an extremely satisfying note, both story and gameplay-wise.

However, although Falcom's baseline writing is still strong and I prefer it to most other JRPGs, most of the supporting cast isn't anything special. They serve to pad out the game because of modern expectations that games need X hours of playtime and Y amount of writing. It's still less egregious than its contemporaries but very noticeable for conflicting with the straight-to-the-point nature of classic Ys.


Taken on their own, none of the issues with combat, exploration or yapping are deal breakers, but they do combine to make for the slowest start in the Ys series, something that ought to affect veterans more than newcomers.

I'm glad I stuck with it because I got to experience one of the hypest moments in the series, and I hold out hope that the next entries will fix some of the transitional problems as they have done before.

I'm not even into Pokemon but I loved Cassette Beasts. It doesn't settle for imitating or referencing, but tries to evolve the formula, taking ideas that have been present in fanworks but adding their own creativity.

There's a sense of place and character that you only get from creators who love what they're making. The fusion system not only helps to give big battles some weight, it has character significance and helps to bridge the gameplay and story.

The implementation of Metroidvania-style abilities makes traversal a lot of fun and is another great example of looking ahead of its inspiration.

I found a good amount of challenge for a casual playthrough, having to retry a few battles and strategize without resorting to looking for cheese. But there's also difficulty settings in the form of separate sliders for AI and level scaling, which is great for choosing your preferred type of difficulty.

Also 10/10 music.

Great, relaxing game with clever puzzles and secrets. Takes cues from The Witness in terms of tutorialization, trippy visuals and environment usage, but smaller in scope.

I write this after a mere 50 minutes because that is all I need to recommend it.

After nearly bouncing off due to how obtuse and physics-janky it is, managing to clear a set of levels was an incredibly unique experience that is already worth the price of admission.

I enjoyed Rabi-Ribi and consider Tevi a solid improvement, albeit it's still lacking in a few areas. I would nonetheless recommend it as a meaty metroidvania with a huge amount of areas and collectibles.


Graphics are extremely solid. I had no issues with visual clarity during combat, which can break a bullet hell. Despite the huge amount of areas and visual variety, no areas feel "too flat" like some did in Rabi-Ribi. The only thing that felt inconsistent were the non-chibi enemies in the final area.

Exploration features some clever platforming and a couple of puzzles that were way better than I was expecting.

Bosses were a mechanical highlight and I always appreciate difficulty options that alter patterns instead of simply fudging numbers. Few games put as much effort into difficulty options and balancing as this.

The area music has some real bangers.


In contrast to the area music, I found the boss music forgettable. That made me far less compelled to grind them despite enjoying their mechanics. I think bullet hell bosses work best when coupled with outstanding character music as seen in Touhou and Undertale.

The exploration falls into a couple metroidvania trappings. Several times I returned to areas after getting what felt like a meaningful ability only to realize I still needed a later ability to do anything, which is partly due to the map markers being woefully inadequate. For some bizarre reason they are the same as uncollected item markers, making them blend together. The arrow markers are not nearly enough to remind yourself of what ability you might need.

Another questionable choice is opened shortcuts closing once you leave an area, which combined with the amount of one-way passages, results in a frequent feeling of the map lying to you while you re-explore for collectibles.

The story, despite being more interesting than Rabi-Ribi's in terms of world/lore/characters, still suffers in the long run. Because the game wants to introduce so many characters for bossfights, we end up with a lot of loose threads that don't come together for the end. The main plot itself ends up being surprisingly generic despite the effort put into the world and lore.