Recent reviews by BEEFE

Kairo is the best game I have experienced in the "why are there Shapes everywhere, I don't understand what's going on" genre. You could also call it "abstract walking simulator" but what I really want is the melancholic lonesomeness and the sense of mystery that drips off 80s computer animation demos, 90s math textbook covers, and yeah, Myst also.

Kairo is mostly an aesthetic experience and the puzzles are more for pacing than a serious challenge, and the aesthetics are exactly what I'm all about. It's largely weird causeways of concrete cubes levitating in misty voids, with enough environmental storytelling that the ending provides closure instead of coming out of nowhere.

Play this game if you want to spend 3-4 hours wandering through hallways of levitating cubes and orbs. If that's not appealing to you, this isn't the game for you.

I was told that turning into a bird and exploring floating islands is a large part of the game, and it's true. If you want to turn into a bird and explore floating islands, this is the game for you.

The core mechanic and platforming are a lot of fun, and the music and environments are charming. Unfortunately, the core mechanic and platforming get abandoned around 2/3 of the way to the basic ending, and basically all of the rest of the game is a tedious collectathon where all of the "puzzles" are "translate various ciphers into a series of inputs that cause a cube to appear." One of those "puzzles" is just a QR code.

The game starts with Gomez being told that he has to save the world from a cosmic threat, this comes up once when an obstacle appears for the first time, and then is never brought up again. Neither the normal nor the special ending address this in the least, or address anything at all.

Fez could have been a 10/10 title if it kept its focus on the core mechanic and didn't forget about its minimal plot, but the majority of the content is valueless filler that retroactively poisoned my enjoyment of the good parts.

The dungeon generation and combat alike are outstanding, and a model for others.

My biggest complaint about the game is that it could stand to distinguish between pacing battles and setpiece battles.

Without qualification, simply the best grid-based tactical combat game I've ever played.

Puzzle Strike is the best deckbuilding game I've ever played, and the port is adequate (not to mention way cheaper than a physical copy).

The online community seems to be dead, but it's well worth getting just to play with friends.

Everyone I've seen who didn't like the game got REALLY mad about the instant noodles, and I'm like "man, they're ramen noodles what did you expect."

If you can see yourself holding a grudge about ramen noodles (that you swiped from someone's pantry), this game might not be for you. Otherwise, you should play it as soon as possibly so you get to be the annoying friend pestering everyone else about it instead of being pestered by your friends.