Recent reviews by D3c4d3nc3

Fun, meaty feeling guns. Enemy AI tends to be on the dumber side, but probably dont make them too clever, as they are supposed to be gang member underlings. Default sensitivity is at a great spot, almost didnt need to change it. Probably needs a bit more time in the oven before release of the full game but has a really good base. I do feel that this game probably has an issue in which the game will get boring if you play it for more than 15 minutes due to the lack of true variety other than the guns, hopefully dev has something planned.

Hooray for Unreal Engine, where the default post processing makes the game only visible for about half a second after you move your mouse. Move your view more than 10 to 15 degrees, and you don't get to see again. Please for the love of all that is holy, do not force Camera Motion Blur and Mouse acceleration to be on. Doesn't matter if your game has fun mechanics if it is going to make people vomit first.

Not bad for the price of free, though honestly quite the waste of time. Gameplay is well done, though can glitch out a bit if you press buttons a little too quickly. The news alongside the game is very biased and is frequently misleading in its coverage.

A well made game with a mix of many niche genres, you're either gonna love it or hate its guts. Would not recommend playing above normal mode for anybody who hasn't no-death cleared a few levels in any classic shmup. (That or played through the base game of Rabi Ribi on Hard or above, that game is a shmup at heart.)
Anyways, its a free game, from the creator of Helltaker, definitely worth a try.

Don't get me wrong, this game is truly unique. However it is marred by large technical issues that are fixable (by the user, or *gasp* by Bamco themselves) but really should not be a thing in todays landscape of patchable video games. Whilst I did enjoy myself and reached 100% achievement completion I find it hard to recommend the game in its current state.

• This port runs well thankfully, high refresh rate looks really nice on modern screens.
  
• Gameplay is timeless
  
• Runs well on Steam Deck
  
• Endgame (Players of the original will know): Rose level completion is not part of this games steam achievements

• ALMOST ALL SOUNDS ARE PITCHED WRONG, BAMCO PLEASE FIX. In the meantime, use mod from https://gamebanana.com/sounds/74922
  
• New "Royal Reverie" content will take most seasoned Katamari players less than an hour to complete
  
• New sticker collectibles are obscure and unfun to collect, while only unlocking Photo Mode content
  
• Extra Song DLC is really scummy, and absolutely not worth it. Lonely Rolling Star already makes a cameo in the base game yet you must pay money to hear it otherwise, I don't think this is a music rights issue, just penny pinching from Bamco.

• Designs have been changed slightly from the PS2 version of the game, the prince and twins no longer look eternally annoyed at everything. Technically fixable with https://gamebanana.com/mods/481092 , but not required imho.
  
• New Royal Reverie content requires an experienced player to replay close to a third of the base game to unlock the new content which is really short

All in all, this is a good game but you only really get anything different by having the option for unlocked framerate and maybe perhaps higher resolution/clarity compared to the flightless birds (ie emu) that are late experience. If you do not have a high refresh screen, it is practically no different to playing the PS2 version but with downgrades that you will have to fix yourself EVERY time the game is installed, lest you wish to feel the pain of everything sounding wrong.

Very fun game that almost nobody will play :( Arena shooters need to make a comeback

If you haven't played Rabi Ribi, do yourself a favour and play that game first. Otherwise, continue on.


TL;DR
This game feels like a half baked expansion pack to Rabi Ribi, but is not necessarily bad, just not as unique or as fun. If I could give this game an "Okay" rating I would.


The Good:

1. Updated shading systems and background scroll allow for a lot more detail and variety than Rabi Ribi
   
2. Combat systems from Rabi Ribi got a pretty good feeling makeover
   
3. FPS is not locked to 60 like in Rabi Ribi, and will consistently hit a completely flat frametime @ VRR'd 237 fps on my machine
   
4. Game in motion looks sublime and responds quicker due to more frames, making me wish that Rabi Ribi felt the same
   
5. Impressive selection for the Japanese voice acting cast, they have the tsundere and the WRYYYY vampire guy in non one liner roles
   
6. Movement system is mostly copied from Rabi Ribi with some extras, but omits hidden tech walljump unless in Free Roam mode 

The Bad:

1. Hard feels extremely easy in comparison to its predecessor Rabi Ribi's Hard, I only died 17 times in my blind playthrough and almost all of those were during exploration to get quick heals
   
2. Bosses felt like pushovers, most fights I would get hit less than 3 times, dying only once in a bossfight across the entire game
   
3. Overbearing story gets in the way of gameplay, and feels more suited to a JRPG than a "metroidvania"
   
4. Dialogue between characters feels too long most of the time, and takes itself way too seriously
   
5. Base game is not designed around sequence breaking like in Rabi Ribi, this game is almost completely linear
   
6. All exploration upgrades are gated behind story sequences, this feels more like a bad version of Ori WoTW than Rabi Ribi

• At least Ori WoTW had the decent idea to have multiple areas that you could access for a wide selection of new abilities, which is not the case in TEVI
  
• In the default mode, you WILL pick up all abilities in the EXACT order the game intends you to pick them up, NO EXCEPTIONS
  
• It took about 6-8 hours of playtime to feel like I had any meaningful exploration upgrades in my blind playthrough, and that doesn't mean much if you know where the next big movement ability will be due to the game spearheading you toward progressing the storyline
  
• Took me 6-8 hours to reach the point of the game that was shown off in the playtest and demo

The Ugly:

1. Story isn't really all that interesting even though the background lore appears to have a lot of effort and thought put into it
   
2. CG art (IMO) appear similar to rough drafts rather than a finished piece of art
   
3. Character designs feel somewhat bland, not really too fetishy nor too mainstream
   
4. It is yet to be seen if the unlocked framerate removes or breaks "zips" (speedrunner trick) as seen in Rabi Ribi. (If anyone knows LMK)
   
5. Game stutters when changing BGM if you have a slow HDD, but I doubt many will have as slow a HDD as mine
   
6. Currently no postgame content other than 100-percenting the map, free update coming soon according to dev
   
7. When game has been cleared once, Speedrun mode is unlocked and applies small changes to the map to allow for sequence breaking
   
8. Free Roam mode is now available on first launch, though the game tells you its not the way to play your first playthrough, as all story is omitted.
   
9. I was only in control of TEVI for 12 out of 32 hours of my blind playthrough, the rest was either spent in cutscenes or me going AFK
   
10. The English localisation seems okay for the most part, but still has noticeably bad moments that have no resemblance ofwhat was actually said.
    
    • I only know this because I skimmed a walkthrough and their language was set to English. I played through the game in Japanese.
    
    Translation fail example, with spoilers for late game item
    Screenshot of Stats
    
    
    17/12/2023 EDIT: Additional info about linearity and quality of localised text
    28/12/2023 EDIT: Small adjustments to review, devs patched out having to beat the whole game to unlock the good mode, still awaiting post-game patch

rabbit rabbit

Extremely well made game with witty dialogue. The developers really did think of everything and reward you for thinking a little outside the box.
Holy shizers this game is SO impressive for what it is attempting to do. There are bugs sometimes but I'd think it'd be a Windows issue most of the time. I kinda expect this game to break when new Windows comes out so play it while you can. This is all of the spoilers you are gonna get, go play the damned video game. ITS FREE!

A suggestion to dev:
It might be worth making a remaster where the game has its own desktop environment, much like how Oneshot did theirs.