Recent reviews by Yoshio

I really loved the wario ware style and the constantly contrasting artstyles but most importantly for a comedy game: it made me laugh. constantly.

I'm honestly pretty amazed at how quickly, and how deeply, this game made me care.

I've played the first 3 Heroes Rise games and am I very big fan, however I almost didn't by this one because of the number of very persuasive negative reviews. However in the end I found the prospect of a cameo from my hero, Specs, in a new series too hard to resist so I took the plunge and gave the redemption series a try. I am very glad I did.

strangely, depending on your perspective, this could be both the strongest and most flawed entry in the heroes rise series. After playing it I can certainly see why there is a split between positive and negative reactions. While the negative reviews are not without merit, I can safely say that the flaws they highlight are not as severe as they make it seem.

Let's get right into it: There are definitely author tracs in this game. Heroes Rise has always been a particularly progressive series and issues of discrimination and underrepresented persons are obviously very important to the author. While these themes have always been present in ther series, In The Redemption Project, they are now a dominant element of the story. Fans who just want a superhero/scifi adventure might find themselves disappointed with these political issues being so prominent this time. There's still plenty of superheroic action sequences and reality show drama to be enjoyed, but they now share equal stagetime with your character grappling these issues.

While these issues don't feel out of place, since the game has given you a main character who is practically guaranteed to have a reason to care about them at least a little, there are points where I couldn't help but feel the game was lecturing me a bit. These segments aren't nearly as jarring as when it happened in Heroes Rise: The Hero Project, but this is still a game that needs you to meet it halfway more then any of the others did since while in the previous series you had a rather typical comicbook superhero with a familiar backstory, this time you have a superhero with an unusual powerset that is also heavily disenfranchised. So even though your hero is still quite customizable, unless you are an underrepresented person yourself, you might find it'll take more effort on your end to care about your character and put yourself in their shoes than in the previous series. At least I found it took a little while for me, but once I did I became utterly hooked.

This game is bigger and longer then any of the previous in the series. The interesting, well developed characters that have a way of forcing you to care about them and hard decisions that I've come to expect from this series are all still here. (in fact I get the sense that the writer has actually improved quite a bit!) There were several times when I was faced with a decision that was so tough that I had to stop playing and leave my chair to really think about what I wanted my character to do, which has always been my favorite part of this series. The writing, characters, and the game's ability to present you with tough choices that make you second guess yourself after making them are the biggest strengths here and I found myself even more engaged by them then I was even in the previous series.

The biggest weakness has been touched on in other reviews, at a few points I had the game wagging its finger at me a bt regarding some of the choices I have made. One was when another character was explaining how they are forced to sacrifice their ideals to survive in the competition and I was presented with 2 previous "bad" choices my character could use to realize how him and this other character are alike, and 1 previous "good" choice that he could use to reflect on how he acted differently. The other instance was near the end where a character with similar ideals as my main character railed into me for falling short by voting the way I did in an elimination. For a game about choice it feels weird to be judged in this way, and I don't know if it was due to the choices I made early on but I definitely felt nudged in a certain direction, particularly when my character had an epiphany and became highly motivated to start breaking down barriers near the end of the game. Personally though I thought it was alot of fun for the game to confront me about my earlier decision like that. It was an opprotunity for my character to realize that while he is still confident that he made the right call, it was still very much not a perfect decision, and he is not perfect either. There are no easy answers here.

The bottom line is that I came into the Redemption Season expecting myself to not like it and I was very surprised to find that it is actually now my favorite of the entire series. If you are a fan of heroes rise I definitely recommend giving this one a shot, if only just to see if you end up liking it as much as I did. It's definitely a bold and different direction from the previous games but alot of what made them great is still here and I found myself warming up to the new elements as i got more invested in the story and the new main character. However, If you are new to the series, I recommend trying the previous trilogy first.

If this game is the first in the series, (I always feel the necessary introductory nature of first installments makes them particularly weak) then needless to say I am very excited.

Ok so I spent quite a bit of time with this game, so now i can honestly say that i give it an enthusiastic recommendation. If you like platformer games at all then you pretty much have to play this game since not only is it completely free, but it is also a very solid little game.

I am not a platformer fan at all so I found the game to be a bit too difficult at first, but fortunately, with a bit of practice and some helpful tips I will get to in a second, you will eventually be left wondering why you were having so much trouble with these levels earlier.

I'm not sure what motivated me to stick with the game despite my early struggles, it could be the nice looking retro graphics, the awesome music, or the excellent and funny writing, but there was just a charm to this game that made me want to keep trying.

You can tell alot of care went into it, definitely worth a try! I had alot of fun in the time I had with it.

Pros:
- fast and fun gameplay
- nice and unique character designs
- really great music
- lots of funny dialogue
- surprising amount of secrets and extras for a free game

Cons:
-some of the checkpoints are too far apart for my taste (I'm looking at you, oil rig!)
-at the point where you can choose the order in which you will beat the next 4 stages, the game's 2 hardest levels (Mt. Afrokoopa and oil rig) happen to be the closest to your starting position.
-a couple of the bosses can be cheesed pretty hard by your dash attack.
-the new race mode achievement, while not impossible, is a bit too unforgiving.

and finally, if you're like me when it comes to these kind of games, here's some tips I found invaluably helpful:

-dash attack is your best friend, its not only awesomely effective against most enemies but there are a ton of jumps that require you to use dash. If you are having a hard time getting the dash to work properly on your keyboard then try using W for it instead! You can dash with only 1 button by pressing W.

-If you feel you need more HP then the 4 measely hearts the game gives you then you can upgrade your life total by finding an NPC called gourmet gal who is hidden somewhere in the 4 levels after the one where you fight the snake girl. There is a guide on where she is located in each level that you can check if you want to guarantee that you won't miss her.

-try beating the sky fortress first. Not only is it one of the easier levels in the game imo, but beating it will unlock a double jump for your character that can make platforming in the rest of the game alot easier.

If you like baseball or if you enjoy playing the simulation or front office modes in sports games than you are gonna love OOTP 15 because there is no baseball sim more detailed or more accurate to the real life game. With a little imagination and the help of tutorials and the easy to install community mods you can sink in hours being the manager or GM of a team from the lowest levels of the minors to MLB or the foreign leagues, play in a historical league from any earlier year in baseball, run a fantasy draft, or even create your own custom baseball league.

The level of customization and detail is pretty insane, I had alot of fun with it and if you are into this sort of thing, you won't be disappointed.