Recent reviews by Emilio

It's ironic; looking back to my youth, I remember We <3 Katamari a lot more than Katamari Damacy.
Playing it now, oh man, it felt as if no time had passed at all and I initially had a blast.

Having said that, I ended up not liking it as much now as an adult, after I finished both of the reroll remasters.
There really is nothing wrong with this remaster, but there is just something about this one that made it a lot less of a game compared to Katamari Damacy.
It retreads a lot of concepts from Damacy, however half the levels are experimental instead of traditional, and honestly, I don't think the gimmick stages are that amazing, and some of them are outright annoying.
There are some weird issues too, like the draw distance is very low, and you can't see very far ahead at any point; the water textures are also all messed up.

There is not much of a story in this one, and it is structured as a "best of."
Ultimately, it feels like a glorified expansion.
Worst part of the game is the Royal Reverie extra mode. I think the remixed stages are sloppily put together, and none of them were fun. Definitely brings the game down with its inclusion.

All in all, if you love Katamari, then you'll like this game too, but I would recommend any newcomer to experience Katamari Damacy first and foremost.

Alt-Frequencies presents an interesting thought exercise about time loops, though the narration and story focus more on themes of anti-establishment then anything else.

This divide in narrative between these opposing stories doesn't overlap smoothly, resulting in an underdeveloped time loop story, a government you barely get to know and an underground rebel movement with surface-level ideals that are never expanded upon.

This ultimately culminates into an overall lukewarm story that is over before it even begins.

As far as the game goes, it feels like a mobile game with minimalist menus and large buttons. That is to say, it's very simplistic but also surprisingly limited.

If it is on sale and you think the story sounds interesting, you could do much worse. But you could do a lot better, too.

On a serious note the game is very linear and a product of its time.
There is a lack of enemy variety as there is only about 6 enemy types, 4 if you don't count the robots who only have 1 attack each.
You're just kinda thrust into the middle of the action which makes sense since your character is also suffering amnesia and is getting adjusted to the world alongside the player.
But despite that, apart from reading some lore bits in the collectables you don't really get a get to learn about the world in a meaningful way.

If you like 7th gen action adventure titles this is more of the same for better or worse.

Fixfox is a curious case.
On one hand, I really respect the developers pacifist views and that they made a game where non-violence is both a central theme but also not preachy.
I also think the concept of going around and repairing things with random objects is a cute DIY vibe that resonated with me.

That said, I can't in good faith recommend it because of annoyances in the actual gameplay department.

At first, the game is pretty inoffensive and has you travel around on a bike, collecting items in stashes, trading items, and repairing machines. The story starts off very simple, and your only objective is getting off the planet.
The country vibe of the first area and simple goal instantly hooked me, and it was so fun at first.
However, as I progressed to area 2 I was largely doing the same thing in the same order; then area 3 was more of the same... oh no.
It's at this point you, as the player, realize that the game has a fetch quest structure it will repeat ad nauseam until the very end of the game.

Just about every gameplay mechanic gets redundant by another gameplay mechanic later on. Plus, it's also shockingly bad that about halfway through the game, it suddenly makes the gameplay loop even worse.

Why have the pirates and the order steal your items at random intervals when you give the player anti-stealing items in such abundance, only to then make them stop stealing altogether?
Why are there two fast travel systems in the game, and why is the worse of the two given away after the better one?

Even if it's for story reasons, giving the player infinite stamina only to suddenly take this away and make your character fall to their knees every six seconds to cough for a few seconds every single sprint makes for a terrible gameplay experience. And when the repairing is the bulk of the actual puzzles, you just give us a button to auto-complete every repair halfway through the game!?

It felt as if even the developer was getting annoyed playtesting the end, so they just made it as easy as possible to speedrun later portions.

Now on to the actual story. It's okay; it has its moments near the start and the end, but the tedium of the middle muddles the story as much as it does the gameplay. I also think the whole animal people furry subplot, while obviously being a way to introduce themes of racism without pointing out any specific minority, feels a bit ham-fisted to be as furry-centric as possible. I get that the developer probably is a furry, but the way it is inserted into the story subtracts from the experience, as it's hard to take it seriously, in my opinion.

I ultimately enjoyed the ending portion and think the developer had some cool ideas that, while not fully realized, could potentially be expanded upon in interesting ways with the experience they gained making this one.

Overall, to sum it up, I didn't hate the game as much as the review might make it sound.
But I think the myriad of issues makes it a hard recommend from my part.
For what it's worth, I will applaud the developer for sticking to their principles and making an original game.

Genuinely an insanely well put together short demo that 100% sold me on the game as a whole.
The exploration is so well done and I had such a blast jumping around, finding shortcuts and making my own way through the city.

The amount of player expression in the movement and traversal in particular starts hitting immersive sim levels of being able to do just about anything you imagine possible.

It's free, fairly short and well worth your time to try!
Can not recommend it enough if you think for even a moment that it looks interesting.

Vernal Edge is a bit of a mixed bag though I still recommend it for a casual playthrough.
It has a lot of issue at it's core but what it does right is fun enough.

I'll start with my issues with the game.
The story feels like it's already 50% into the adventure and you're just thrust into it with little time to get to know the world, you eventually do start learning about the backstory of the main characters but even after beating it I still felt like I just wasn't invested in the world cause so much of the context was missing.

To add on to this issue apart from the main villian and 2 main characters everyone else felt like a random assortment of OC's sprinkled about.
Lo and behold I reach the credit and it does turn out a substantial amount of the characters where kickstarter backer characters.
These characters look out of place to say the least, demons, furries and just about everything else.
It makes the world not feel like a real place and shatters the immersion that this is a coherent world.

The combat while fun has a similar issue Guacamelee has where you do very little damage and while the act of doing combos can lead to some cool moments; you often just end up juggling guys around that can barely defend themselves and the fight drag on too long because of it.
I also can't deny the enemy variation was very poor, only having roughly 7-9 normal enemies that you fight from start to end.
The spells are also very poorly balanced and 99% of spells are essentially useless.
You'll be using timebomb exclusively once you get it early on. (I guarantee it)
And to top it off the game isn't even one of the hardest I have played, but every boss fight is a super steep difficulty spike (especially the final ones) that is always way harder then anything before or after the boss fight.

Now I know that's a lot of negatives but I ultimately do enjoy the game despite these flaws and once you get a few upgrades going the movement and platforming is fun and the puzzles where okay. I really liked the "non-linear" nature of the exploration even if it is painfully obvious it's just an illusion and there is a very specific path you should follow even if you can deviate a tiny bit.
My favorite part of the game has to be the music, especially the boss music.
Holy.... the music in this game is fantastic and I so wish the devs put it on streaming services.

Overall it's an okay game in it's own right and while it never does better then games it was inspired by I still think it can be worth a try if you get it on sale.

Edit: Vicious difficulty, more like unfair difficulty. Enemies don't take more hits and don't deal more damage. But they spam a million of the toughest enemies making the start of the game super difficult and then it just becomes easier.
Ironically the bosses are way easier in comparison. Bad difficulty setting.

It's a very short game and apart from maybe 1 or 2 brain teasers is a fairly straight forward experience from start to finish.
Absolutely perfect for the steam deck, honestly if you need a platformer for the deck this is one of your best bets hands down. The short game time and the ability to save and quit whenever makes short play sessions more then perfect.

The graphics is very on point, models look fantastic and perfectly implements 2D sprites when appropriate.
The look and design of the worlds never feel out of place and the collectibles are always placed in sensible locations and the secrets are well telegraphed so I never had an issue finding everything.

The music is phenomenal and perfectly evokes the feeling of a dreamlike state and subsequently terror and nightmares.

The game feel and gameplay plays exactly as you expect them to feel that is to say a little more responsive then your average N64 title but still old school in a pleasant way.

Honestly my biggest issue with the game is that the power ups feel a little inconsequential and one of them I never really used outside the 4 or so puzzles that actually required it.
I wish the powerups where either unlocked from the start or had more of an impact.

Overall it's a very comfy game that does exactly what it sets out to do and I can not recommend it enough if you're into 3D platformers and collectathons.

Visually Chernobylite looks stunning and is probably the most impressive looking double AA game I have played.
And as one of the few people that played GET EVEN, this was also such an awesome soft sequel back into that universe.

The story much like their previous game is also fantastic and tells such varied human stories from different perspectives and characters that all have their issues that makes them relatable though not always agreeable.
I really had a hard time not just playing one more mission to get to know these characters more.

The music while very depressing in nature has some really outstanding and beautiful tracks that nearly bring a tear to my eye. As well as some really cool and catchy action combat songs.
A surprisingly good soundtrack quite simply.

From a gameplay perspective there is a lot that shines here.
First and foremost the base building is really fun and feels impactful on your gameplay and progression.
But at no point did it feel overwhelming or grindy on hard difficulty.
It reminded me a lot of Subnautica and it's very smooth progression curve of crafting/grinding resources to exploring ratio.

The shooting also felt good though the mediocre enemy AI does turn end game encounters to all feel the same, as they just kinda throw themselves at you without much ability to retaliate.
It feels the best in the early to mid game when you really have to ration your ammo.
You can craft various traps on the field which also helps break up the shooting, not that it's too difficult to outsmart the enemies.

The various maps are fairly small and it's not that difficult or time consuming to gathering resources.
The missions are also not that complex either, but it makes every journey into the zone fairly bite size when you only have time for smaller sessions.

However I have to mention the faithful recreation of Pripyat is just so hauntingly appealing to explore as you slowly make your way through the desolate ruins, seeing all the color in the paintings, stained glass and murals aswell as the oppressive soviet brutalist architecture.
Just a brilliant fully realized world that perfects it's ambitions more so then I have seen in other comparable games.


Overall you can definitely feel that this is a lower budget game with a much smaller scope, but that doesn't stop it from performing well above that budget for a very enjoyable experience from start to finish.
Well worth it to me.

There are times when you truly play something special and immersive that completely swallows your attention.
Voidspire Tactics managed to completely captivate me more then I could ever have expected.

I love immersive sim games and to this point have only really experienced first person ones.
And this by all means is an immersive sim through and through, the sense of logical puzzle solving and secret finding is pretty much unmatched and I felt so smart finding my own solutions and way forward as this game is non-linear and have multiple ways to solve one problem.

The sense of exploration is nothing short of brilliant and you have so many different ways you can move around and interact with the world.
You can dig up the ground, pickaxe through walls, plant vines to climb walls, use rope to descend mountain slopes, activate machinery with electricity, just about everything and anything you can imagine.
To compliment this just about every single attack/buff have a use both in combat and in exploration/puzzle solving.

Combine this with an incredible environment, the titular voidspire is a huge floating spire made of landmass stolen from all the corners of the world (and even some out of this world) which allows the game to explore all these different and varied biomes with totally different tones to them.

The combat is really good and allows so much creative freedom on how you want to build your characters.
You have the ability to use two different items in both your hands, unless you're using a two handed weapon.
So you have a near unlimited amount of dual wield potential, no matter how you wanna combine your weapons and support items. Every support item also have multiple uses just like the weapons (say shields blocks attacks but can be used as a weapon to shove enemies around and lanterns provides light but also can do fire attacks)

You also have 18 different classes to pick from and can dual class 2 at a time.
The stats are taken from your main class, but you can use any abilities from your secondary class aswell.
There is also 3 passive slots where you can use any combination of 3 passives from any class without restrictions.
Aswell as the choice between 4 different races with different racial bonuses.

Admittedly the story is not the main focus of the game and while there are story to be had it's more there as an excuse to move forward and fight enemies. A lot of it is world building and your own personal journey as a player.
Which is totally fine by me as too much story would detract from the excellent exploration.

Overall I can only say wow, what an incredible game.
Nothing short of a masterpiece and one of the greatest immersive sim games on the market.
I can not wait to play the other titles by Rad Codex.

"Less is more" is a mantra that I wish this developer had in mind.

Purely from a gameplay standpoint it isn't bad, the combat is a simpler version of the Batman combat, pretty much a one button combat system. It does it's job and can even be fun at times from how well it flows.
You have a magic system which just buffs/heals you and a run of the mill skill tree.

The biggest highlight is the humor which is actually pretty funny, it's a lot of pop culture references to games, events and celebrities.
At times it's borderline modernized Gex dialogue.

My biggest issue is the structure of the story. You have this book that the main character is reading that shows him the future and many different outcomes of his actions and you learn truth's at dead ends that you can then use to figure out a perfect solution with this knowledge to forge the perfect path where you survive the events of the game.

Now the issue is that even with the truth's known; nothing actually changes apart from eventually unlocking the true ending when all are found.
So say you know for a fact that every decision with a specific character is a bad idea cause they are a bad person the MC will constantly mention their knowledge of this fact but ignore it for the sake of letting that story unfold as if you didn't know this fact.
Which makes it kinda pointless to even have this meta narrative of learning knowledge you shouldn't have to influence the story, I wish the game was way shorter and focused more on that meta narrative even if it would be even more linear.

Also I have to mention the fact that you can not skip cutscenes and have to replay so much of the game and rewatch the same cutscenes over and over again to 100%, it's a pain.

So overall despite being a little bit negative about it.
It is a pretty good Steam Deck game if you want a simple little adventure game in short bursts but I do not recommend getting 100%.
A very similar game that is pretty much the same concept but perfected is Beacon Pines which I would highly recommend checking out.