Recent reviews by Noxyba

I'm sure there's something here if the the infinite layers of post-irony appeal to you but from a sensory perspective this is actually unplayable to me. I have the wrong kind of brain damage to enjoy anything about how it feels to look at, listen to, and play. It's really just too disorienting.

Felt.

This game is really cute, if a little callow, and finding out that a huge amount of the discussion and publicity around it relates to a transphobic knock-off dating sim using its characters is enormously disheartening. It definitely deserves better.

Experience the existential anxiety of having a complicated relationship with your mother and an adversarial relationship with your memory. Set to a soundtrack that punches well above its weight, with writing that is sometimes schmaltzy, frequently charming, and always sincere. The gameplay isn't much, and sometimes drags, but it consciously tries not to get too much in the way of the lovely storytelling.

If you're about 1 or 2 hours in and thinking, "I still don't know if I like this," my recommendation is to continue. It's a slow burn, and it grows on you.

I have solo'd every Soulsborne game from the start. I've beaten several without leveling.

This feels like a colossal step backwards in so many ways, taking all of the base game's worst qualities and making them the focus of every area, every encounter, every enemy. I am tired of the relentless aggression of bosses with one-second openings and ridiculous spacing moves. I am tired of my thorough exploration being constantly "rewarded" with either nothing or trash items that I'm already drowning in. I am tired of the dev messages telling me overtly how to handle problems with solutions that are obvious to anyone with functioning eyes. I am tired of the same 3 enemy types in the overworld repeated over, and over, and over again. I am just tired of it all.

EDIT: Bayle slaps, tho.

Profoundly anxiety-inducing experience, deeply uncomfortable at all times, highly recommended.

There aren't many games that allow you to hack off your own grievously infected limbs with a bonesaw and then consume them in a calculated move to avoid dying of sepsis and starvation, but they are all truly special. This is one of those games.

You can cajole an old man to join an ultranationalist vigilante group in an attempt to requisition his ham sandwich. You can paint cryptic murals in the middle of a murder investigation while your partner actively worries for your mental stability. You can help anodic proto-ravers set up a nightclub and drug lab in an abandoned church. Your necktie can tell you to be an anarchist and set people on fire. You can tell neoliberals to their faces that they'll be first against the wall in the revolution. Your base instincts can quote DMX songs at you. You can have a conversation with a bug about the scourge of humanity and the horrors of consciousness. You can die by sitting on a particularly uncomfortable chair.

I don't know what art is, but this is art.

A little game about little efforts that mean the world.

I've nothing but fond things to say about this game. It's a deeply nostalgic experience, a love letter to the genre's forebears, while also being a vibrant, contemporary, and lively game all its own. Every moment of the game is full of heart and earnestness and sincerity. It's lovely and refreshing and I'd recommend it to anyone.