Good video game. Really enjoyable, good amount of levels. I'm not great at these types of games so it's a struggle bus but I'm still having a grand 'ol time.

Peak. Play the game. Music is great, gameplay is great. Throughout my entire time playing it was nothing but a blast.

Toree best birb

Peak video game. Play it, it's great. Well worth the price.
Some levels are just fun to play through and dash around, some others will just outright destroy you but it's okay. Very low skill floor, but decently high skill ceiling.
I do think the game could use two (maybe three) songs per zone though.

Rolling around at the speed of sound.

Very good game, especially as a speed game.

Mechanically the game can be a tad finicky for anyone starting off, especially since there haven't been that many hook games in some time. Last I remember was Grapple Force Rena, but that was significantly slower. Otherwise, once you get used to it and start picking up speed it gets pretty fast in a hurry. Otherwise, the one ability that is a bit finicky to use is the charge dash, but it's not TOO bad

Main issue that the game can have is the abundance of cut scenes and slow walking. Some cut scenes are unskippable, which can get annoying for folk doing multiple playthroughs, and during the slow walking segments it's hard to tell what's a cut scene and what isn't.
* Since Speedrun mode isn't out yet, we don't have that yet for proper practice or anything, but that should be resolved soon.

Music is great. Not much to really say there they all fit their situations. The Long Voyage was great.

Story is pretty strong, even if the translation is not the greatest. Typos, grammar issues, sometimes using the incorrect words entirely. Hopefully they can fix that all soon for future players.

All in all, good vidya. Play it.

I have no idea how to feel about this game. The lack of settings definitely confused me, especially after the recent trend of a lot of games not allowing you to access settings on launch, so seeing nothing there was baffling. Then I realized the game had no settings period which was even weirder. This is obviously being a issue since it's making some folk's computers heat up due to not being able to change things, sometimes turning some computers into jet engines. I have to wonder what went on in the beta testing process or... anything really. I feel like this should have been talked about.

Gameplay wise the game is fine. Some levels are fun, although the game is pretty simple to get through. I think there's a health upgrade in the tutorial mission, so for anyone starting get that as quickly as you can, since you can't replay it currently. This was a weird decision as well. Other than that, being able to replay levels by section is neat. Collecting the pink cubes was enjoyable enough, however I will also say it's strange to lock the final upgrade. The 4 levels make up to 120 of these collectibles, but the game will lock you at 119 until you play the final stage and collect stuff there. Totaling at 150. This was super confusing since I kept looking at the levels thinking I miscounted or missed something somewhere, but no the math checked out. ...At least I think it did. The insanity continues.

Story wise the game is a tad forgettable. It's alright for the most part, but some plot threads kind of just... Disappear and the game abruptly ends. ...That's really the main thing I can say about it. There are two unresolved plot threads, yes this involves villains (two to be exact) getting away, but the ending carries on like "and then everyone was happy". Pretty much no mention about preparing for them coming back, or anything. Legit nothing. The hell?

Graphically the game is fine. There were a few ... oddities I ran into on the 4th stage, but other than that there wasn't much to speak about.

In the end I do for the most part recommend this game. My gripes with how the story ended aside, those are just personal gripes. Some people can obviously ignore those things and think it's fine. For anyone that can't though and think it is pretty clowny. Ignore the game.
However I do also recommend waiting for patches down the line or a sale before getting the game. The lack of settings can be a killer depending on your machine, so it's best to wait in general. This is another one of those games I wish I had a in between option, although I'll give it a thumbs up because I did have fun. ...Although I don't know how much the lack of settings affected my machine while streaming. Hopefully not too much fingers crossed.

Edit:
Looks like the game now as options, so that's nice. Apparently I also wasn't going insane and there was a bug in regards to the cubes. Insanity = defeated.

Octopath Traveler II is a pretty enjoyable game with some issues. Despite its issues it's still a step above the first game. Has some QoL stuff such as quick travel, while adding in some amount of interactions with party members.

The music itself is really good. Likely will find myself listening to the soundtrack on occasion, basically put it into my rotation.

Gameplay wise the game is decently standard. Once you find your combos you start destroying things and doing massive damage. The joys of these games is to destroy bosses as hard as possible. It's hilarious deleting 45 level bosses, watching the in fight cutscene happen, then slapping them for however little damage and they just disintegrate. Some characters also feel stronger than others. Agnea feels like she does very little while in comparison Hikari is just tossing around big numbers like it's going out of style. Ochette does too but not on the same level. Other than all that the game is your very typical jrpg flair, not much unique besides the final boss.

A lot of it still feels disconnected, namely only having 4 people at once, so typically it only ends up being one on ones or very rarely involving 3 characters. I have yet to see one with 4. On top of the fact that they're also unvoiced so there is a disconnect there on top of it. It feels weird knowing this has been a solved thing having all 8 characters all together, yet the devs decided to make it a issue. Not sure why.

Story wise the game struggles. Due to the aforementioned nature of the story being overall disconnected, some things feel random at times. But it's okay, by nature the game is mostly pretty freestyle, but now that I'm talking about story, I technically have 9 stories I need to think/cover. So I'll just... go into spoiler territory now and give a list of best to worst.

- Spoiler Territory -

1. Castti, 2. Throne, 3. Partitio, 4. Hikari, 5. Temenos, 6. Ochette, 7. Osvald, 8. Extra/Final, 9. Agnea
Favorite Character: Castti
Starting Character: Ochette

Main things to note:
Agnea's story felt like nothing. The "villain" kinda just felt like they shoved her in there because they forgot to make one. " All For You" is mid. They could have easily talked about how the industry notoriously abuses stars/idols, but opted not to. Although I can't recall if the first game did this, either way. Castti's was the only one that got a emotional response out of me. Osvald standing there like a idiot for two chapters was dumber than rocks. Ch4 was mostly fine, ch5 was some next level "what the hell are you doing?" tier ♥♥♥♥. Throne hyped me up, killing those ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ felt so good. Partitio is a good man, although I would have preferred a ethical capitalism vs late-stage capitalism approach. Hikari was typical anime stuff, although I did like how his latent ability changed names and color scheme. Temenos was better than expected, the detective stuff was neato. Ochette dropped the ball with its final boss. The start of darkness was technically in the beginning when the (animal not chosen) attacked unprovoked. The rest was clearly manipulative and tried to get some "oh, the poor thing" points.
The final story, well... I just think the typical "depressed villain doesn't find their life worthwhile, so clearly life in general is meaningless" thing has run its course. This seems to be happening more actively. Each time it's a eye roller. I cared nothing for it. I did find it sweet that Partitio being how he is was Ori's reason to keep on living. Odd how she didn't see other characters like Ochette and especially Castti in a positive light like that, but it's nice.

- Out of Spoiler Territory -

That's about it. Mostly it's a fine game. The grind is a bit excessive, especially if you want to fight the super boss. Although I'll be honest it's not a fun fight so I wouldn't recommend going for it anyway.

Despite my gripes maybe you'll end up liking the story beats. Personally I see these types happen time and time again that I'm a little just tired of it all. There ARE better RPGs out there, but this game is pretty. Although I would recommend turning off the blur/bloom in the engine.ini file, seriously you won't regret it. The game can be pretty uneasy on the eyes. In the end this felt more like a expansion of the first, with nerfs here and there. There are definite improvements that can be made, especially to reduce grinding. Also, the banter should be voiced imo. Breathe some life into the characters and their interactions with eachother. Especially when they all have different stories, they are the life of your game.

In my case I got it 20% off, so that helped my decision in getting it. If I had to pay 60 for this though? Yeah, nah. I can't recommend the game at this price point. Get the game on a sale if you can. The improvements aren't enough to warrant another $60 price tag imo. Your mileage may vary though. Dear god Valve you really need to give us a neutral option.

Lunistice is a fun short little platformer. It does have a story, but most of that it told through notes as well as the game's intro. Other than that, you play a character by the name of Hana and go through a set of levels that are based off her memories. Complete with fun music to listen to, and a few tight platforming sequences.

Where the game shines is obviously the platforming. The game has a lot of room to find skips and everything else, while still moving pretty fast despite Hana's movement speed not being the fastest out there, she's still decently quick. For speedy boys out there some of the skips are a lot of fun too. My personal favorite to do runs of is 6-1.

The music itself is also incredibly good. A lot of fun to listen to. If you can buy the soundtrack off the composer on bandcamp: https://knasibas.bandcamp.com/album/lunistice-original-game-soundtrack. Or buy it on Steam, either or works.
In the end, this game is a steal at $5. A solid experience.

Sonic Frontiers is a enjoyable game with quite a few issues here and there. The place where it shines the most is definitely in storytelling, although I'm not sure how much of that is just Ian Flynn carrying the show considering how clowny generations/forces/colors were. With that said, I'll just tackle on the aspects that I thought was good, and then bad after. Although honestly, I wish I had an option to just give a Indecisive review, since I can't decide between recommend or not.


Characterization. I won't lie, this game helped basically all the characters. Sonic himself felt like how he was in Sonic Unleashed which was my favorite iteration of Sonic. Jokey, and serious when it comes to his friends. The relationship he had with Chip in that game was well done. In this game it really solidified what his relationship is all about with everyone else. Calling Tails "little bro", the banter he has with Knuckles, and the conversations with Amy. On top of that, I enjoyed seeing the mutual respect that Eggman and Sonic have for each other even if Eggman is too prideful to fully admit it, or say it to him.

Amy I felt got the best of it though. For too many games in a row they always had her be that weird clingy girl constantly trying to get with Sonic. Instead in this game they actually... talked and discussed about things, even on the topic of love. For once she wasn't just being weird because ha ha funny, and I thought that was great. Tails and Knuckles were just amplified versions of their prior selves, while focusing on Tails finally branching off and Knuckles trying to find out how to protect Angel Island/The Master Emerald better.

Eggman himself the Memos really helped with him. Since he wasn't in many cutscenes, instead we got a good look at his thought process through those. They were really good.
Gameplay wise the combat was alright, and annoying at other times, but otherwise it was serviceable. The Islands themselves were also fine, particularly the last one and the first one were pretty good.


As much as I said gameplay was alright, there are loads of physics things and others that were just incredibly confusing decisions. I have no idea why they decided to do all this.
Having to hold forward to boost or run is really awkward, especially considering how much Sonic veers left/right if you're not holding your stick completely up, on top of the lack of momentum, it's so silly just seeing Sonic completely stop as if you weren't holding your boost button. Even after some speed pads, if you're not holding the stick he just... stops. Real weird.
Along with that, it seems that they went all in on the combat aspect, now boost doesn't kill enemies in cyberspace levels either, forcing you to either jump, homing attack, slide, or just avoid them altogether.

Ring Dash being placed on a separate button (why is it on L3?) in favor of that new circle ability. The part that's confusing about this is that one requires a tap and the other requires holding it, so you would think they can figure this out, but nope. Also, that weird complete stop after a light ring dash is... interesting, it only doesn't have that awkward delay if there is a spring or a pad after it.

Combat itself is pretty slow, as a result homing attack, like the light dash, has a awkward delay on impact. So during Cyberspace levels if there's a chain homing attack, it's a real slow process, so instead of using Sonic's ability you go out of your way to avoid it in general.
Jumping is also really weird. Sometimes it makes the correct distance, sometimes it barely goes forward at all so I fall to my death. On top of that you have little to no aerial movement after you chose your direction. Considering they went all out with ground movement, seems a bit much to restrct air movement as much as they did.

As I typed all that, there is now currently a mod that fixes all these issues, but that still involves having to use a mod. Hopefully the devs look at it and see what exactly they did.
I really feels like they felt bad about not using Super Sonic that often so now there are 4 super sonic fights, and they're not exactly... exciting. Super Sonic always was that moment at the end of the game, but constantly losing the Chaos Emeralds over and over... Super Sonic starts losing its spark after the second time. On top of it the camera is pretty wild on those fights, I had issues keeping track of the second one in particular. It's pretty disorienting. That said, side stepping+attack is broken and does a obscene amount of damage. The fights tend to end the moment they start.

Another thing in regards to control/camera/movement. The fact that the "guardians" that are around each island always showing you their name and freezing the game. Even when you're just running around 100%ing the island. Special shoutouts go to "Fortress" on the Chaos Island taking your camera for a good 5~10 seconds.
Speaking of Chaos Island, it was by far the worst one, with paths not going where you thought they would, it was pretty easy to get lost and... Honestly just not a fun experience overall.

Upgrading speed/ring is a chore. I have no idea why they thought it was a good idea to upgrade only one at a time, on top of the fact that menuing again to select an option takes around 2 seconds. I would say an hour and some change was spent upgrading those two things alone. Just sitting there, selecting my option. That should not be a thing that is happening.


On Cyberspace levels, I did like playing a bunch of older levels again. City Escape, Green Forest, Metal Harbor, a lot of stages are there. However, in regards to the lore, which I feel was added because people were accusing them to being lazy... Yeah, uh, last I checked Radical Highway/Sky Rail (and I'm pretty sure there was a third, I'm blanking) were Shadow levels, so it seems odd to randomly add lore of "based on Sonic's memory" then to just put in levels he wasn't involved in. Oof.

With that said, it's also incredibly dissappointing to see all these levels simply reskinned as Green Hill/Chemical Plant/Sky Sanctuary/...whatever the 4th was. City Escape? idk. Either way, I think it would have been nice to see some of the older levels especially with a modern look. Oh, right, the drifting mechanics from the Unleashed level were uh... Yeah, that ain't it.
All in all, I think there's a template for a good game here. They just need to work out some things, hopefully SEGA management doesn't mess things up like they normally do. However, I do prefer the sense of speed from Unleashed/Generations much more than this game can ever deliver. I just hope that they can improve upon it (it's definitely a step up from Forces good lord that game was a mess) and make a better game in the future. Or, hell, update this game with better mechanics/physics and add some DLC levels. There are hints on things in regards to Tails/Knuckles/Amy after all.

Edit: After much deliberation, I decided to change my review to negative as I think they still have a lot to work on, and I don't think the game is worth $60. The pop-ins, issues I mentioned, and the oddly 30 fps cutscenes were enough.
Also added in something else in "the bad"

Interesting metroidvania. There isn't too much to say about the game, it's pretty enjoyable in general.

Some of the environments were nice to look at, some others were pretty samey to the rest. Haak in general was a okay character, and at times the localization was a tad wonky.
Where this game shined was the movement by a mile. Haak as a character feels very good to move around, and pretty much majority of your moves move you forward/up in a way. There's a lot of tricks you can do as a result, but probably the most enjoyable was just sliding around on flat surfaces whenever they were there.
The combat wasn't as great. It's about what you expect from melee combat in a metroidvania, sometimes a tad finicky, particularly with reflecting projectiles, but it works really well most times.
The story itself wasn't something to write home about either, but it gets the job done. The localization didn't entirely help but it's fine for what it is.
All in all, I had a good time with the game. More and more metroidvanias are learning to give your dash ability early, and I only see this as a good sign. Movement is very important when you're constantly exploring to keep the flow going.

I would say my main gripe is how the game ends. After the final boss you get another escape sequence... followed by a extra area with some puzzles, and it just ends with a whimper. I feel like that could have been handled a bit better.

ENDER LILIES is quite a amazing experience. There is a lot that I enjoyed from my play through in general. The character is cute, and it's honestly really cool to have your weapons, and in some cases abilities be other characters themselves as they carry you or otherwise.

The primary thing I liked about this game was the fact that, despite the fact their world is all kinds of messed up, through all the stories you read majority of the characters you learn about all looked out for each other before they succumbed to the blight. Either it was for their best friend and they only wanted to see them smile (or alleviate their pain), a lover they desperately tried to find a cure for, a family member they wanted to protect, or even standing by in a flower field that their priestess loved. In spite of it all, this game had a lot of positive vibes in it. Which you don't see that very often. I won't deny that some of their stories made me tear up, or just stuck with me. The whole theme of the game in the end was of hope rather than suffering.

The art of the game was really pretty, Lily herself was quite a nice design. The design of all the characters were nice too, with my favorite probably being Eleine. Area designs were pretty to look at as well. Mili coming in hot with the soundtrack. All the music was great. They fit the areas quite well, and it was nice to hear a different theme for each major boss. Bubel is a nice song.

Combat was what I enjoyed the most. I can see why it might be bothersome for some, but I loved how there were so many options to go for, and you weren't too restricted on which ones you wanted to use. I ended up using Siegrid for majority of the game, she was real good in most situations. So was the poison cloud (can't recall the name). And again, part of the enjoyment was seeing that all your weapons was the characters defending you, which is a pretty cool concept.

I highly recommend anyone to at least give the game a go. It's a good experience in general, never know if you'll enjoy it.