Recent reviews by SeTirap

Slay the Spire but with positioning which really adds so much to the gameplay and overall replayability.
For me personally everything i did not like about Slay the Spire this game fixed with the positioning, you actually have reliable ways with multiple movement cards or items to avoid dmg or even let the enemies obliterate themselves.
Like in Slay the Spire there are multiple classes to choose from all with an unique deck, they add variety and are all useable but some obviously will work better or will be more reliable than others.

Long story short the game is good and cheap,
really can't recommend it enough to at least try it out, if you're not completly against a deckbuilder, even if you did not like Slay the Spire. (As i've said i didn't and stioll enjoyed this one)

In general moderate to good game but has a softlock that can occur if you loose to a boss in the 2nd half of the game.

Good Game,
almost everything you may want from a Hero Shooter.
If you liked Overwatch you probably will like this even more since it does almost everything better especially after Blizzard decided to fu** the players over.
It is casual friendly as well as it is competitive, that means the heroes are mostly easy to pick up but still deep in mechanics.
There are match up abilities with certain heroes which i was skeptical in the beginning but changed my mind since it really did what it was supposed to do.
Remember when you saw the same Heroes in every match, this is no more due to this mechanic, it just encourages a more flexible play-style.
All heroes are available right from the get go the online store seems pretty fair (at least up until now) and offers cosmetics only.
They do not advertise it, but purchased battle-passes do not disappear after the season runs out.

But of course there is room for improvement, (in Quick-Play) you can not disable cross-platform, good luck with a full team playstation players beating a full team of pc players with mouse and keyboard.
You can not disable aim acceleration (but developers confirmed they will add this in future patches).

Contrary to what most click-/rage-bait influencers around the gaming sphere might spread this game isn't very well optimized or stable at all, either they lie or simply do not play the game and don't know sh*t or are simply out of touch with their high-end system.
Either way there is no excuse for how this game runs, especially for what you are getting visually, for example after the current patch most destructible props simply pop into the the void when you shoot them (might only be on lower settings).
In general frame-rates are abysmal since the game is build upon UE5 (i have no real evidence for this but it's kind of obvius) that this game does not seem to utilize any form of LODs other than the build in nanite technology.
If you don't know what it does, google it (i dont want to write a review that escalates into a tech essay), this is extremely dumbed down but the most important thing you need to know is that in almost any case traditional LODs will perform better and nanite just wastes your resources.
Also the game likes to freeze for multiple seconds or simply crash from time to time.
Of course all of that isn't as black and white and other than the ugly poping out of props into the void the frame-rate in fact did improve a bit compared to the last patch, but it still is a long way to go before you actually can call that stable or even good performing.

But still it does many crucial things right with focus on gameplay and player agency instead of a pure business-model that tries to use as many psychological tricks as possible resulting in a fun, gameplay focused experience.
My hopes are up that they might iron out at least some of the issues, you can at least see they are trying to deliver what players actually want and it shows in player count (most matches are found almost instantaneously).

The DLC adds a new campaign where you play as reimu with a different arsenal consisting of a melee weapon which you'll never use after the 2 enemies at the beginning a half-aotomatic rifle and a napalm grenade launcher which is powerfull but feeels bad to use.
Some new enemies were added to the roaster which is nice, the mouse girls thing drops diamonds that will shoot you which is a cool addition.

Other than that the maps are way more visually interresting this time around and have more variety to them, on the other hand there are even fewer secrets some maps do not have even a single one and there is only one boss.

You lose some abilities/weapons like timefreeze and daggers since you're not sakuya anymore.
Its really a bummer that you're limited to this few weapons but ultimatley does no real difference since all you'll probbably were using in the base game was the shotgun or daggers with the ocaisonal timefreeze.

I dont know if you can find the shotgun or pistol in this one, did not bother finding all the secrets this time around, i only found one of the hitscan/beam sakuya dolls from the base game which only has 50 ammo and burns through its ammo rather quickly.
It wasnt really fun to search for the secrets since some of the maps looked pretty clustered on the minimap and there were maps without secrets anyway so yeah.

But definitley pick this up if you buy the base game and its on sale, it is absolutley a improvement over the base game and adds a bit more value to it.

It was fun,
but to be honest, if you buy it, do so only on sale and with the dlc. ~8€ for a 1-1,30h "horde" doom wad is asking a bit much in my oppinion.
It runs on GZDoom but i'm pretty sure you could run the wad on any other source port and ultimatley why should you bother GZDoom is probbably the best one.

In terms of gameplay, most levels are pretty linear horde levels without any hitscan enemies which makes them enjoyable, a little bit like serious sam.
The weapons are fun to use, but you never really have the incentive to use anything else than the shotgun, because you get 2000 ammo from the get go and it has a secont alt firemode with rightklick where instead of unloading everything you can unload more precice bursts.
Maybe sometimes its nice to use the timefreeze (makes any boss npraktikally a non issue) and knives which bounce of of surfaces so you can just spam into a room without peeking but in general it was just quicker to use the shotgun.

The texturework is nice but in the main game at least there is to little variety in terms of enivornment and enemies.
There are like 3 different enemies and 2 slightly stronger variants of the same thing, this is without the bosses obviously which were fine even good for doom engine standards and they translated the bullet hell part of touhou as good as it can get with an engine this old.
Other than the looks the maps have not much to it, they have some secrets but most of them are pretty obvious.

In general i had fun and would reccomend it, just not for the asking price, there are better doom wads even here on steam that are completly free, not that i dont want to spend money on those, obviously i do but for the asking price i just expected more.

It really hurts me to give the game a thumb down, i really really enjoyed it.

First things first i love the game i really do.
If the issue i will describe in this review does not make you turned off by this, be assuerd that you get a wonderfull game i would argue one of the best in the RPG-Maker esque horror and story driven adventure games, there is just something that works really well with the shoujou mixup and persona like time/relationship management mixed with horror and mystery elements.
The dialogue is superb and the attention to detail is just at its peak.

But the game has serious save file issues when overwriting old save slots (which you ultimatley will eventually since the game provides no save delete option) that got neglected by the devs since release.
This includes parameters like lantern on/off state saving incorrectly (potentially other parameters as well but thankfully did not encounter any, it just bugges me because i know it could happen) and the game loading completly wrong out of date saves if you use the same slot multiple times, this seems to happen when the cloud synch encounters an error it creates a new file for the same slot, instead of prompting you that there is a conflict it just yolos into the game and displays the new one but loads the old one yeah...
This can of course happen on any machine but you are more prone to it if you switch devices regulary like me who plaed that game on Steam Deck, the first time i wanted to play this on on my Desktop guess what happened.
It is an reproducable issue and you can see many people (myself included) reporting about it in the forums for years now.

Although i found a workaround for this by deleting older files locally on both devices for the affected slots, this is hardly a solution and i simply cant give a thumbs up for something like this despide really loving the game.
It has the potential to kill complete playthroughs if you dont dig deeper into this and i certantly didnt find any fixes to this, it was mere coincidence that i happened to have the idea to check if my cloud saves are getting updated correctly and the number of save files caught my attention.

My Post:
https://steamproxy.com/app/1812370/discussions/1/4628107223585922523/

Some other topics that catched my eye:
https://steamproxy.com/app/1812370/discussions/1/4288061352807290365/
https://steamproxy.com/app/1812370/discussions/1/4764333678365480184/
https://steamproxy.com/app/1812370/discussions/1/4520010047768210904/

Edit: I stumbled upon the Discord of AstralShift and guess what people reported it even there, still no response from the developer despite reguraly online team members, also there are people finding it acceptible that users need to manually fiddle with save files, people have opinions i guess...

First things first, there is an SFW mode if you're annoyed by the lewd content or simply do not want that.

I still highly recommend this game to everyone who likes Metroidvanias even a bit, i would rather suggest not to buy it solely for the lewd content.
Whats there isn't bad at all, it is nice to look at and i like the art style don't get me wrong,
but it is pretty limited to some cg during loading screens/game-overs and some sprite animations with most of them seem little samey, all girls share the same base sprite with only hair and breast size differences.
All of the lewd scenes are girl gets raped by the same zombies or tentacles every time, really they could have gotten little bit more creative here, they didn't do anything with the companions you gather through out the game, they didn't anything with the bosses, neither did they do anything with the enemies (which is strange since they did in the previous title).
This really annoys me here, it is a pretty big lost opportunity here, they really should have done at least something with the enemies and bosses, at least with the female ones it is a hentai game after all.
You have female enemies and bosses so use them, because that's the point where things can get interesting/more creative rather than the stock zombies/tentacles they use in every scene.

But what the game lacks in lewd content it really makes up in the gameplay part and that's why i recommend it even for people uninterested in NSFW, just play the SFW version you will not regret it.

Contrary to what you might think, this is a pretty competent Metroidvania heavily inspired by Castlevania 2 Simons Quest.
It plays exactly like you would expect from a modern retro title brings some new ideas to the table pretty solid level design although fast travel is pretty limited which feels a little bit odd and unnecessary, especially since everything besides that has a much higher level of quality.
The only game that comes into my mind which translates the NES era Castlevanias and modernizes them better is Bloodstained 1+2 although those are more influenced by 3 rather than 2 and aren't Metroidvanias per definition.
You can clearly see the difference in terms of visuals and budget of those in comparison to this, which doesn't mean this here is bad at all.

The game itself is a little bit on the easier side, since you get a checkpoint in every room even on the hardest of the 4 difficulty modes which is instant death, which isn't really a one hit kill mode more a 2 hit mode since the first time you reach 1HP you'll lose your armor instead of dying.
This mode really only exists to unlock the humiliation CG of the player easier it really isn't meant to play this way so i suggest hard which gets at least a little bit challenging in the second half of the game.

To conclude all of this i would rate this 8/10 or 9/10 when lewd content isn't important to you,
its a gem hidden behind a porn game.
I really hope they got the lewd part right in the sequels, there are at least animated cgs in the later titles and in general it looks like the quality of everything made a big step up if i look at the trailers of Castle in the Clouds or Tower and Sword so i keep my hopes up until i get there.

If it werent for the bugs and glitches i wouldnt be so harsh,
But the frequency where you die without getting hit way to high.

You can get stuck in moving platforms (forcing a level restart), dissapearing bosses (2 times also forcing a level restart) and items that just do not get drawn by the game (witch hapenes at least once per level).
The game itself is mid at best MegaMan clone, can get a little frustrating, but is not teribble or someting an certanly not as hard as the MegaMan series.

I still would not reccomend it, even without the bugs, uninteressting dialogue,
same texture for spikes that sometimes instakill you sometimes dont,
really lazy stages in the later part of the game.
Bad and frustrating level design in general containing the usual traps that for sure will kill you the first time around,
wierd boss patterns that you have to memorise because nothing is telegraphed propperly at all.
The movement itself is janky, anything related to moving platforms, imagine a platform moving up and down and every time you stand on it and its moving down the player is hopping around leaving you only a view frames every hop to jump, yeah its this sort of janck.
I really do not want to be mean, its a little dev but the game simply isnt fun, bugs aside its passable, but thats it.

If your are serching for a Mega Man clone and the bugs do not bother you as much, you can grab it on sale.
But you're probbably better of getting other games like Mighty Gunvolt, Mighty Gunvolt Burst or UDONGEIN X (which is superb by the way and costs less than that).

To be honest, im not a big fan of the cinematic interactive movie like genre.
This is mostly thanks due to David Cages works, since in my opinion,
those games are hugely overpriced films with in general mostly herendously bad or at most mid writing.

Well, since the games got older the price tag problem kind got weakend,
so at least you dont have to do the out of your mind move to buy a potentially bad film for 60€
I dont know how much this game was initially but based on the newest entry this probbably applied here too.

The game was ok, would i really reccomend it to anyone? No not really, its way better than Until Down, mainly because of the party isnt as herendesly bad, but sadly carries over many of its flaws.

But lets focus more on the game itself and why i dont reccomend it even for the 20€ prcetag now.
The animations are wonky as soon as you get control over to walk around, the charrecters look around while walking but chage the focus so often that that it looks like they have ADHD, sometimes it gets even as hillarious that it destroys every possible atmosphere that could get build up.
Face animations have the typical uncanny valley esque vibe sometimes, especially when the characters get introduced.
The story has many plotholes, i respect that in a horror story characters need to make stupid decisions,
otherwise probbably not much would happen, it is ok overall, nmothing big, but it is enjoyable,
The horror on the other hand heavily rellies on jumpscares, im not completly opposed to jumpscares, but to relly on them in every scene possible just makes it cheap overall.

I wont say much to the gameplay, its what you would expect, not really much, it has a "coop"...,
where you get a prompt to hand over your controller... so yeah... forget about that.
It has some nice posibbilities for the characters to die thou, which are kind of dynamicly implemented, so you can potentially safe or let them die.

So yeah i wouldnt reccomed it for 20€, but i admitt that its probbably one of the better ones if you want to try this genre just dont pay more than 10€ for it, or maybe get Detroit when its on sale.

You really needed to do this...
Woke developer felt the need to retroactively censor a decade old game, shame on you.
Its bad enough new AAA releases get butchered, but a decade old game for gods sake is just ludicrous.
Also the big fat middle finger to all community members who dissagre with the changes, they've lost all integrity at this point.
Therefore my interrest in playing it sunk to 0, also i'm not gonna support any future product by this developer.
I really only looked into the game sporadically since i dont play that much fighting games, but do enjoy them from time to time. So yeah its still possible that its a good fighting game at its core.
But in all honesty, i did bought the game for the fanservice it was the main appeal and i know there are many other people who think so as well.
It's not even the only thing they changed, they literally altered plot elements, removed voicelines (which were paid now delisted dlc by the way) and depictions because of "sensitivity issues".
Imagine Mortal Kombat without its gore and brutality, it turns pretty generic aren't it?
The same logic applies here.

If you don't like it why dont you make a new ip or at least a sequel and leave this game be?
Why is it this important to you taking it away from people?
(Man can only assume if its lack of talent to develope a new ip since at least some of the big names left the team, i dunno)
But well i dont get why people are still defending this kind of behavior of the developers with clear disrespect to its very own playerbase and consumers.
It's completly ok to disagree with the original vision this game had, but why again should it be acceptible to force censorship upon people a decade after release who have different taste just because you dont like it or dissagre?
Its not like people can refund it anymore or anything else, i don't buy or play censored games out of principle since any change that goes in this direction, may it even be so small like the first selfcensor wich was forced upon this game at 2015.
As you can see now, if you let it slide, it's just sending the wrong signals to developers, therefore some corporate journalists and twitter activists will come for more and force their oppinions upon us.

There are so many games out there especially fighting games like this, i couldnt be bothered to play this anymore over something like SoulCalibur (which was great) or Guilty Gear (which looks amazing) or even the newly released Street Fighter (i dont like how combos work in this franchise but i am ready to give the new one a shot) to name a view.