Reviews by Neppy

It has been a while that I've play a game so.. soulless. Awful. I was worried right away when I booted up the campaign which threw me right into the game. For a campaign mode, there is surprisingly no story at all, not even a single line of dialogue. But alright, a game doesn't need to be carried by a story to be good. Then the game started.. and I realised right away how lazy this game is. There are only four enemies in the whole game, and they repeat the same pattern constantly. They even appear in a set pattern. The game also reuses the same assets all the time. The campaign has some slight variations, including a wall instead of trees woohoo. Oh yeah, the campaign lasts a total of 15 MINUTES by the way. And these 15 minutes are full of boring, repetitive gameplay. I also had to discover a lot myself. There is a small guide in the options menu but it doesn't tell you everything. You can attack either by shooting a projectile or by charging up a whirlwind attack. I almost never used the projectile because wolves would constantly come up to you from behind, but I needed the projectiles for the bosses because they could not get damaged by the whirlwind despite being clearly in range. How damage worked was also very unclear. I initially thought it would have to do with the amounts of hit I took, but there is zero UI so I couldn't see a life bar or anything. Instead, you can't get damaged twice consecutively. So technically you can stay alive forever, but since there are no invincibility frames and the enemies don't disappear after hitting you, you'll most likely end up dead anyway. Bosses were an absolute chore to fight because you could almost never line up with them due to trees blocking your way or enemies constantly spawning. The only other mode was endless but it's the same as campaign, just.. endless. There is one compliment I can give and that's the music, but I can't really compliment the game for that as they're stolen music pieces from famous composers. I have zero respect for this game, and I highly recommend you to avoid this game.

Lumines is a fun, simple puzzle game not too different from your favourite blocks-falling puzzle game. Yet, Lumines does set itself apart from being just different enough to be its own series of puzzle games. The main difference here being that you are not removing lines but blocks, and that you have to work with two different colours to create those blocks and potentially bigger combos. With a timeline that moves slowly across the screen, it is very satisfying to clean as much blocks as possible in one timeline round. It does the job it set out to very well, and that's being addicting and easy to pick up. There is a good amount of skins to unlock as well, either through a mode specifically designed to unlock skills, challenging the CPU or puzzle mode. With the latter two I do have slight issues however. The CPU mode always starts from the same skin, and whenever you lose you have to start all over again. I would've liked a lifes system being implemented here, since it's not that difficult to lose a CPU battle. Now I need to restart CPU mode every time and make it back to the point where I lost to get a chance at that skin. Puzzle mode is really fun, but I find it to be kinda lazy that the latter half is the same as the first half, just doubled. Nitpicking aside, Lumines is a fun puzzle game that I can recommend to anyone looking for a casual, relaxing game. Though the game has been remastered now, so you may want to check out that one. This game still holds up well however, so you can't go wrong with the PSP version either.

I've had a surprisingly good time playing through Jack N' Jill DX. I went in without any expectations, but the graphics and some of the gameplay I saw appealed to me. When I booted up the first level, I did not expect it to be an Autorunner. Jack or Jill does not stop after the A button has been pressed, and it's up to you to press the A button whenever s/he needs to jump or avoid an obstacle. At first this all felt very simple for me, but with every so many levels and each new world, Jack N' Jill DX adds some more gameplay variety to keep the experience fresh. Suddenly you'll end up walljumping and flying like Flappy Bird. All very welcome additions, and as a result I kept coming back for more. The latter upgrades were slightly less impressive (particularly the clouds) and the later levels also became pretty long and re-used a lot of previous puzzles which dragged on. There are a few pixel-perfect jumps, but resets are fast and they overall were easily distinguishable so they didn't give me too many issues. Coins in stages can be used to play minigames which are a decently fun distraction. They also give tickets which unlocked a good variety of screen filters and skins for the playable blobs. They are simple rewards, but I enjoyed working for them. What I didn't enjoy working for were the achievements. A lot of Achievement Hunters will probably hate me for saying this, but I hate that all achievements unlock within the first half hour, while there is a legit game beyond that half hour. To add insult to injury, there is an actual achievement list in-game with far more achievements, but they are not used. While there was enough to do in game, I feel less rewarded than I would have if the Achievements were the ones present in the game itself. It's a tiny nitpick on an otherwise surprisingly fun game.

Super Destronaut DX is a pretty simple Space Invaders clone. It's easy to pick up and play, with a good amount of modes. There are some options I set off by default which were too distracting, and I appreciate the option being there because otherwise I probably wouldn't have liked this game too much. The gameplay is pretty solid and is short wave-to-wave rounds with a limited amount of lives and a leaderboard to conquer. Shoot more enemies consecutively within 3 seconds and you'll increase your score multiplier. The better you are at dodging enemy attacks, the better you will perform on the leaderboard. This works pretty well.. except for time attack mode. Time attack mode (and the latter half of challenge mode) shows one of my biggest complaints with the game. Time limits are often pretty strict, and in challenge mode the requirements are pretty high. This is still doable as I did it myself.. but only if RNG favours you. It doesn't matter how good you are at Space Invaders, without power-ups you won't conquer these challenges. And power-ups can be gained from enemies that may or may not appear in a wave, and is completely random. You may see where I'm going with this but yes, if you get the wrong power-ups, or no power-ups at all, you're probably going to press the restart button pretty often. Like I said, this doesn't matter for regular modes but for time attack, you will definitely need the power-ups. I will compliment the game for having restarts be pretty much instantaneously, but with that comes another problem. The port is pretty.. lazy and pretty much requires you to have a gamepad. But the gamepad does not have a button mapped for the pause menu, so you have to go to your keyboard and press a button there. You can try playing it with the mouse and keyboard.. but the mouse doesn't show up. So yeah, you practically need both, at least for a few options. Finally, I feel the achievements are way too easy. I don't mind an easy completion every now and then, but I only need to do 2/5th of the challenges and get a few points in the scoreboard modes and I already have everything. I did all the challenges but purely for my own satisfaction. Overall Super Destronaut DX is a fun indie Space Invader that you can spend a few hours on at best.

Pursuit Force nails the feeling of being a police action movie very well. Criminals who won't stop at anything, a diverse set of missions to undertake and it's full of cheesy humour. I will compliment the game for that, but unfortunately that will also be the only compliment I can give. The developers took the police theme inspiration probably too literally, particularly the 'only got one chance' part. The difficulty is extremely punishing and not in a fun way. Everything has to be done pixel-perfect and within a time limit, and if you are unable to do that you will fail the mission guaranteed. Now I don't mind a bit of trial and error, but this game does not have a checkpoint system, and missions are pretty long. This means that you'll constantly be retrying missions that are easily over 5 minutes long, just to fail near the end. And the worst part is that you have to beat every mission before you are able to unlock the next ones, so not only will you have to retry constantly, but you also can't continue the story. The missions also have grades and unlock cheats at the highest grade. Great, now I can use them in unfinished missions to make it easier for myse- oh wait, I can't use cheats on unfinished missions. What. How do you even mess up the cheats. And it truly is a shame because I enjoyed the jumping between cars, hijacking them and shooting criminals while driving. But with a game this punishing, it was not meant to be. There are some alternative modes with one being a racing mode. Cool I'd say.. but it takes away the core mechanic of Pursuit Force (jumping between vehicles and shooting) and leaves an empty, soulless driving mode. The driving in this game is nothing special, so a whole mode dedicated to that is just a waste of effort. There is a sequel to this game which I will still try out, hoping it has improved on this game. The concept is good, the execution is completely ruined by the difficulty.

It's almost stunning to see WipEout Pure being a launch title for the PSP, because it holds its own very well even comparing to other games released later. It's WipEout on the go with a decent amount of stages and vehicles to choose from. But what WipEout surprisingly excels at is the amount of DLC, which puts many games to shame. A total of 16 tracks are added to the game, which doubles or possibly even triples gameplay time. It's easily accessable with multiple difficulties, and I truly felt like I got better at the game the more I played. That's the best feeling I could wish for in any video game, and WipEout Pure handles that pretty well. Getting used to each craft takes some time because it requires mastery of drifting, but the easier difficulties carry you into that feeling eventually. First introduced in Fusion and part of this game as well is the Zone mode, a race where your craft constantly goes faster and faster, and you have to make as many laps without having your vehicle end up being destroyed. It's a fun mode for the few minutes it lasts, because it is over before you know unfortunately because there are only 4 maps. There are a good amount of unlockables in this game as well, though personally I found them to be spread unevenly over the course of the game. You can unlock everything before even touching the final two difficulty modes, especially if you also own the DLC since no completion bonuses were added. Those are only two minor complaints to an otherwise very good WipEout game on the PSP, and amongst the best racing games on the platform as well.

Hexyz Force is a great RPG for the PSP handheld. The game is split into two campaigns, but each campaign already gives a fulfilling experience. I personally would have preferred the two campaigns to eventually unlock a third final story or chapter, but that would force people to play both campaigns so it's fine as it is now. I also like how Cecilia's story can technically be seen as a more fantasy-like, casual light-hearted story to reflect the part of the world she comes from, while Levant's story is darker. The companions accompanying each protagonist reflect that theme as well. This does not mean that dark moments don't happen in Cecilia's story and vice versa, but I appreciate the difference regardless. There's also an evil, good or even a completely neutral route to take for both campaigns which will affect the endings, adding replayability. This doesn't mean that you go on a complete genocide or something as everything is calculated by the amount of monsters you kill and if you spend the game's currency well. Everything in the world of Berge revolves around Force, sort of a currency. Force is needed for everything, from crafting armour and weapons to upgrading your character-specific weapons to even using it for story purposes. It's a very easy to understand system, and used pretty well. The only way to get force is through combat which is kind of a shame but understandable since that's most of what you'll be doing anyway. The combat itself is classic turn-based combat with its unique feature being the usage of character-specific weapons and durable weapons. The former, also called Ragnafacts, use Ragnapoints. Basically an equivalence to MP in other JRPGs and can only be used a limited amount of times before you need to restore your RP. Durable weapons can be used as alternative but as the name implies, they degrade into nothingness after a select amount of uses. It is a solid combat system, and I also greatly appreciate the ability to speed up animations so battles fly by pretty fast. Hexyz Force is a solid RPG overall, and if you are able to get your hands on it is definitely worth a shot. My main critisism would be that the story is played through two different characters, but the story progression and dungeons are pretty much the same. I won't deny that I was getting tired of visiting the same dungeon at the end of every chapter, which also houses the worst enemy in the entire game that can potentially give you a very easy game-over. It's a minor complaint on  an overall good game, but one that could potentially have made the game even better than it currently is.

Bear with me as this is going to be a long review.. despite me only giving it a 7 out of 10. I say that because this game could easily be an 8 out there for some people.. or just far lower and avoid it at all cost. For me, it has become a ''love to hate'' game.. but at the same time a ''hate to love'' game. There is one main ''problem'' that plagues the entire franchise, and that is a total shift of gameplay instead of improving on what previously worked very well (the boost formula). I should mention beforehand that I am a huge Sonic fan, but even I know that Sonic Team is not competent enough to keep introducing new gameplay styles because often when they do that, the first game fails before they improve it in later games. And what do you know, the gameplay introduced in Lost World has not been revisited while it has so much potential. Let me start off by saying that I greatly appreciate the team trying to make Sonic the most agile he can and should be. He can run at three different speeds and run up or across walls. Sonic is probably the most versitile he has ever been in his own franchise. Some wisps even make a return, though the Bomb and Magenta wisps have absolutely no reason for existing and are downright horrible. Unfortunately Sonic Lost World does an exceptional poor job at explaining.. well, anything to you. This game originally launched on the Wii U where it had a touchscreen tablet for multiple options such as the bag for items or the omochao missions screen. In no way is it told how to access these menus on PC, which could be easily fixed by putting a small image of which button to press on said menus. One of these menus is the hint/tutorial menu, which should explain Sonic's new mechanics. Not only do I have no idea on how to access said menu without my mouse, but I have to physically stop moving and then press whatever button to see the hint. This could have easily been solved with the hint being displayed in game like how previous Sonic games did it, or an actual tutorial. Due to that, I had a miserable time the first few stages. Jumping is affected by your run speed for example, which is especially apparent in 2D stages. Or the worst part for me, the new parkouring mechanic. Not only do I sometimes attach to a wall and sometimes not, but in one of the very first stages it introduces corners. I legitimatly had to look up a guide on the internet on how parkouring works, because Sonic Lost World refuses to teach me. And this habit of not explaining anything remains throughout the whole game. It is not helped by Lost World taking on a wide variety of gameplay styles. First you're in a tubular level, then suddenly in a 2D stage, an auto-runner, a sky level with awkward controls and a pinball section that is mandatory and results in lost lifes if you fail. Though I do have to mention that most of the levels in Sonic Lost World were really fun.. just not the first time due to the game not explaining anything. When I learned how the stages worked and aimed for completion, I had a much better time going through them and legitimatly enjoyed my time. Sonic Lost World is a fun game when you know how it works. Another hit-or-miss feature is the Omochao missions system. I had a lot of fun doing them after I had finished the game due to me revisiting stages and actually enjoying them. I am not completely sure if the missions are given in a random order but if they aren't, they're given in a pretty bad order. I got most of the ''kill xxx enemies'' or ''Get xxxx rings'' near the end and that just meant I had to grind a lot while I technically had done everything there was to do in the game already. This could have been done better, but it's completely optional. The missions reward you with power-ups that you can activate at any time in the stages. I very often forgot to use them though, since they're yet again in a menu you won't access very often, and you can only carry five power-ups at a time. Since it's optional I can't really complain about it, but I do feel the mission system could have been implemented better. I could complain about how terrible the Deadly Six are but eh, I've gone on for long enough and want to get to my final verdict.

Sonic Lost World is not a bad game, not at all. But there is one main problem you have to get past before you are able to enjoy the game to begin with. Sonic Team has made a lot of innovations for this game, most with good intentions. But there are some problems with the new controls (jumping with different speeds and parkour), and Lost World's UI and an exceptionally weak introduction to these controls make the first time you play probably very frustrating, and that's a feeling that won't leave you till long after you have played the game. I do recommend this game still, but it is a soft recommendation. You will either enjoy this game, or you won't.

Castlevania Legends is often seen as one of the black sheeps this franchise has too offer. That's not saying a lot since quite a lot of games in this franchise are seen as black sheeps. But Castlevania Legends in particular has even gone so far as having the original creator openly speaking about his distaste towards this game, and made it non-canon to the franchise. Honestly speaking, I don't find the game to be that bad for the most part. Sonia, the main protagonist controls very well for a classic Castlevania game, especially with air mobility. Sub weapons are gone and replaced by Soul Weapons and Burning Mode, which I found harmless really. What Legends does wrong however is the other major part of a platformer: level design. Stages are huge and encourage exploration. Great idea, I love games that allow me to explore a stage and being rewarded in the process. Except.. you aren't being rewarded. When you explore, you either come upon an item that will affect the ending, or you'll come upon a dead end or monster room with no rewards whatsoever. And given that Castlevania games aren't like Sonic or Mario where you can return to where you were pretty fast and kill enemies with ease, this is not a desirable situation. Those dead ends can potentially be the end of you, and it's a big waste of time. If the dead ends at least rewarded you with something it wouldn't be half as bad. Stages as a result are a chore to go through, and that's the last thing you want to have in a platforming game. Also I dislike how there's quite a long hallway between the final boss and the last checkpoint. It's not difficult, just long. Overall Castlevania Legends is a good platformer mechanically, but held back by the quite bad stage design.

While the original Super Mario Land was a launch title that arguably is still worth playing today (I'd say so at least), Super Mario Land 2 is a massive improvement over that game. The graphics are way better and the gameplay is way smoother. You can truly see how the developers have gotten familiar with the handheld after experimenting with other games. What I personally found a high point about the original is the unique themeing with stages based on history, coming with representing enemies as well. While the themeing is less historical here, most of the stages are still unique and very memorable. I don't remember other Mario games where you go through a big Mario statue or inside of a turtle. The stages themselves also got an upgrade and aren't just simple horizontal stages, but also vertical with alternate exits in them to unlock more stages. And best of all probably: they can be played in any order! Mario needs to go through a total of six worlds to get a golden coin which he can in turn use to enter his own castle and kick the newly-introduced Wario out. Yet again enforcing its own themeing as Mario doesn't go out to beat an oversized lizard and get the princess for the 5th time this week, but instead for own personal goals. All of this makes Super Mario Land 2 a memorable game that stands amongst the 2D Platformer giants from the franchise. The only thing missing for me is an additional hard mode like the original had, as the game is still very easy and once you've beaten it, you're practically done. Fortunately being able to select which stages to play in what order makes up for that, but I still would have greatly appreciated it as an addition.