One of the best games I've ever played. It's got everything you could ask for, challenging and engaging gameplay, fantastic sound design/music, a grand thematically-dense narrative, phenomenal art direction, extraordinary boss fights, great pacing, and a massive world that feels simultaneously magical yet real. An incredible follow-up to it's more flawed predecessor--the only thing holding it back, I feel, is a somewhat underwhelming final act.

The game is very difficult, but I don't think it's ever truly unfair. Like it's predecessor, it can be overtly punishing. Unlike it's predecessor, the core gameplay is so engaging that losing doesn't feel cumbersome. Hornet is fast, agile, and just feels wonderful to control. Boss fights are extremely well telegraphed, and can be learned relatively quickly. The game does have some quirky parts, notably Bilewater, where the developers intentionally tested players patience with unruly runbacks, but they're often appropriately placed along the games increasing difficulty curve and for the sake of ludonarrative cohesiveness.

I played Hollow Knight after 100%ing this game--I often dropped HK early on for being very boring and tedious, but was emboldened to push through and find out why some players might prefer HK to SS. It was then I learned that a fantastic game exists in the second half of Hollow Knight. Upon experiencing this, I realized that HK's endgame is a lot stronger compared to this game's "Act 3."

Act 3 is.. strange. It's all over the place in quality, the entire world is changed but there often isn't incentive to re-explore most of the map, you also get an instant teleport to your fast travel system to accommodate for it's disjointed progression style. Some of the best boss fights in the game exist in Act 3, but the story starts to make less sense. The tone is all over the place, where you can go from having to mercy-kill a beloved side character to playing a sprinting minigame. It's just kind of bizarre, considering how much more cohesive and polished Act 1 and 2 felt in comparison. There are tidbits of wonderful platforming sections of Act 3, like the Abyss Climb or Surface Climb, but nothing that feels as strong or evocative as HK's White Palace or even Act 2's Cogwork Core. Lastly, the final ability you get is... cool? But kind of useless, serving only to act as a key to previously inaccessible areas.

Regardless, it's still a good final act, just a noticeable decline in quality/polish/cohesiveness compared to the first two, and not enough to write off the game entirely. Besides, considering that HK got post-game updates that made some substantial improvements to it's endgame, I think it's fair to assume that Silksong will do the same. I can't really ask for much more out of Act 1/2, so I hope the updates focus on improving Act 3. HK's best boss fights all exist as DLC fights, so I'm eagerly awaiting this games updates.

Easy recommendation.

It's just not for me.

Starting with the good:
The music and art direction in this game is wonderful, it's incredibly fun and entertaining with friends, and the humor is delightful. The voice actors knocked all of their roles out of the park. The starting cast is diverse, likable, and melded well with giving each of my friends someone they can identify with. The unlockable cast is solid too. The story is a fun pace-breaker between the hectic gameplay, some may say the cutscenes go on too long but I like being able to take a break to watch the characters screw around and do funny or cool things. I identified some subtextual, broader commentaries on the gay community going on, but I may be overthinking it or just seeing a subconscious projection of the creators. There are also numerous references to classic arcade games which are delightful.

The hyper sexualization is.. well, let's just face it, a core identity of the game and the people who made it. Extremely recognizable NSFW artists worked on this game, and so if you're part of that sphere, you'll be familiar with their work. I think it's an appeal for sure, and I have no doubt that it's the favorite part for a lot of people. However, for me, I think it goes too far and borders on uncomfortable. I like my men, don't get me wrong, but playing a game like this with friends and then being thrown into an arena that's a stripclub with art of a porn artist's OC being spitroasted by their two other OC's in the background, or even some sexualized characters having child-like proportions--I'm not here to judge others and I'm not against adult media, some of my favorite games are adult games. I just wasn't prepared for the lengths the devs were willing to go with the sexualization and it made me feel vulnerable in a way I don't feel was warranted.

As for the gameplay:
I appreciate what it's trying to go for, but it's really rough around the edges right now. The difficulty curve and learning curve is insane. The UX is atrocious, both in menu's and ingame: How easy it is for players to leave the lobby with a mistaken button press, the confusing layouts of some of the screens, the unusual control scheme, the amount of incredibly obtuse enemy tells, the weak attack feedback, the limited credits shared between teammates, making weaker players a liability to bring along and bring you back to the start of a full stage (usually 30-60 minutes long respectively). You can die really quickly to enemy/boss combos that you're unfamiliar with, making the game feel very trial-and-error heavy. I'd recommend playing on the absolute easiest difficulty with friends, even the games 2nd to easy is undertuned for new players. This game has the spirit and the soul of an early 2000's hideki kamiya game with the gamefeel of a bootleg from the 90's. The input lag/server lag when playing online only exacerbates these issues. Despite being an arcade style beat-em-up, there's no plans for local co-op either. On top of all of that, the game is very buggy.

The scoring system for the multiplayer is strange, too. I like it conceptually, but it falls flat in execution. Racking up combo multipliers that give your grab a damage multiplier, and tying points to kill confirms, seems intended to promote players to be both intentional with the types of moves they use (to prevent others from stealing their kills) while also timing their grabs to kill when others aren't capable to. In practice, kill-stealing is rampant and optimal. The server lag causes grabs to lag, and so buffering a grab while another player gets an enemies stun-meter depleted is usually the best plan, even if it doesn't guarantee a kill. Some characters have extremely overpowered crowd control, like Amares, who's triangle attack can juggle enemies forever and keep them out of range from anyone else. It's just a really awkward system.

The way the difficulty is implies that there's some hidden depth to the mechanics or gameplay that I'm just not getting, but I really don't see it. If there is, I can't find myself bothering to care to try and replay it on harder difficulties to learn. Maybe when the game gets speedruns and high level play videos, I'll be able to discover that and revisit it. Until then, it's too obtuse for me.

I can tell this is a passion project and it doesn't look like it's been easy for them to make the game. I can't judge or critique too harshly knowing that this kind of game likely won't get any outside support from anyone but the communities this game is specifically for. I think that'll make it a special game to a lot of people, especially since so many enemies are based on characters created by the developers friends and community. I did my part in convincing myself and three other people to buy it.

I think there's a lot of potential, but for where it's at right now, I can only really recommend this game for androphilic furries to play with their friends. If you're outside that target demographic, you probably won't have a good time.

Game of the Year. 10/10 Gameplay, 10/10 Story, 10/10 Art, 10/10 Music, 10/10 Everything.

It's basically what people said Hollow Knight was (a perfect metroidvania) without being what Hollow Knight actually is (mediocre)

I am writing this review from the perspective of a Project M / Melee player, I have only played a little bit of Rivals of Aether 1, so I won't be comparing it to that. This game is essentially a spiritual successor to Melee/Project M.

The base gameplay is extraordinary. The movement is incredibly fluid, the movement, defensive, and offensive options from Melee have been translated perfectly into this, yet they are much easier to execute than ever before. If you're good at either of these games, your skills will instantly transfer over.

The mechanics that are altered from their predecessor are often better designed. They added special pummels to grabs, which provide an alternative attack option while holding onto your opponent. Through this addition, they were able to improve upon the grab mechanic in a subtle way. Escaping from grabs in melee/PM required mashing your controller like a caveman, while escaping a grab in Rivals 2 requires predicting your opponent's pummel option.

The art direction is wonderful. The style is cartoony, but the animations are fantastic and the style lends to really well designed characters. The sound design is solid as well, and the music is alright. I'm not a huge fan of the soundtrack, but it's not bad, just not among my favorites in the genre.

The game is very well balanced, every character is tournament viable, though some are more difficult to learn than others.

Despite all of this, I can't recommend this game in its current state. There are only 12 stages and 10 playable characters. Among the stages, a majority of them have dreamland-esque blastzones. That, combined with this game's nonexistent edgeguard game, lead to stocks (lives) becoming tediously and frustratingly long. If you can kill at a medium percent, it's usually fine, but the game actively punishes you for letting your opponent live too long with losing kill confirm options. This hurts some characters way more than others.

There is a severe lack in features and additional game modes. There's no tutorial mode for casuals, there's no beginner lobby, custom lobbies lack basic features like rotations, brackets, spectators, etc. No chat/voice features. There's no Stamina mode, nor All Star Versus, nor Turbo. There's no ranked Doubles mode. But hey, you have ranked singles, and matchmaking 1v1's, 2v2's, and FFA's. A barebones arcade mode and an under-developed training mode. That's it.

With future balancing updates, additional characters + stages, new game modes and modding support, this game has the potential to be a 10/10 and a true successor to Melee/Project M. Until then, I'd say either stick with Slippi, or download Project +.

Update: The game still sucks. Genuinely the most disappointing game of 2024. I hope it doesn't die but I don't have much faith.

My personal Game of the Year, and La-mulana 2 came out this year.

The Protagonist has the job system of FF5, while you obtain "jobs" from defeating midbosses and imagining being them. This has effects on the overworld, too, and is used to solve puzzles. Your party members, of which there are 7, come with 4 attacks and 2 "manual" slots that let them have 2 additional attacks you can swap out between battles. On top of this, you have trinkets with special property's or statboosts, weapons and armor with special property's or statboosts, etc. Much like the FF series.

The story is whimsical and fun, the game goes from 0 to 100 in an instant, and you'll feel a large variety of different feelings throughout the game. There are several references to lynchian and lovecraftian horror, and while I personally feel the game is primarily a horror game with a cheery facade backdrop, some may argue that the horror is just another part of the game and the clever writing, fun characters, and fantastic combat is the main draw of the game.

The boss fights are absolutely wonderful if you're the kind of masochist who liked struggling with bosses in older JRPG's without grinding. While grinding is an option, it's not necessary at all, the bosses are just super challenging and thus super rewarding if you do fight them head-on when you encounter them. The late-game bosses are a mixed bag, some really fantastic and others really easy, but overall a really well rounded experience.

If you're looking for a 30-40 hour JRPG that you can extend to about 60-80 hours through completionism sake, go for it.

If you're a hardcore final fantasy fan looking for a tinge of earthbound, go for it.

If you're a hardcore earthbound fan looking for a tinge of final fantasy, go for it.

At the end of the day, you'll end up experiencing something familiar, yet completely new. It's an absolute wonderful game and I'd argue the best horror turnbased RPG ever made.

An absolutely amazing sequel to my second favorite game of all time. I genuinely don't understand how it's not more popular, I don't see what games like Shovel Knight, Shantae, etc. have over it that make them so much more widespread.

La-mulana 2 has:
-Faster paced movement and combat, with tons of minibosses and boss fights that make use of your arsenal and always feel fair.
-A very game-large world that starts off more linear than the original, primarily to streamline the game for newer players, but as soon as you get through the first two areas the game opens up and starts becoming less linear.
-A TON of items and collectables to find scattered throughout the game world, absolutely a must for people that love 100%ing games.
-A fantastic soundtrack, though not really as memorable as the original.
-Story is more streamlined, more on-rails due to the more linear nature of the game.
-Puzzles are much less ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ but still require plenty of critical thinking skills.

All in all, GOTY 2018. Only god knows why everyone refuses to play it.

This review is going to come off rude but this game is straight up insulting to the player. This is something every game developer needs to do and usually takes up more than 50% of development time: Polish your ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ game. Playtesting, Debugging, Adding Nuance, Putting effort into UI/Controls/Options/Menu/ ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ Spelling. Releasing a game that's beatable doesn't make it any less unfinished. You're an independent developer, not a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ ♥♥♥♥♥♥. If you made the game to begin with you can definitely put forth the effort to not have the most basic, standard, "it works so it's fine.." everything! There's a reason this game is only being sold for four dollars, and it's not because the dev is generous!

Unfortunately, people will still pay for games that are newgrounds-tier quality because they have so little standards that they'll take anything instead of asking for better games, because eventually, developers who want money are gonna have to listen to the majority. So congratulations, you're a game developer profiting off literal wastes of life. If that's the legacy you want to have, so be it. Enjoy your $500 from sales.

This is the first game released this year that I've played and thought was good, and I've played over 50 games (though haven't played DaS3 yet, so don't think I'm saying this is better than that). It's brimming with creativity, originality, challenge, and fun. I was genuinely surprised that it was considered an early access title given it's fun and unique gameplay, level variety, and all the little secrets and tidbits. I can safely say that this is the best indie title of the first half of the year.

It's great for children, as well. I'm sure if only this was more popular, it'd be a hit with the younger crowd. For adults, you can definitely appreciate the amount of effort and passion put into the game, even if it may come off corny, but the challenge is still real.

It's a breath of fresh air in a market filled with shallow and soulless design/aesthetics.

If I were to give it criticism, however, I think that the controls are a little iffy. There isn't much of an incentive to hold down the up/down key as it's incredibly inaccurate, the superior option being to tap the button instead. The problem with this is that this can put a lot of strain on your hands.

Aside from that, it's a pretty fantastic game.