Recent reviews by Justyn

Through densely inspired skatecore aesthetics, HFR is a combo-oriented hack n slash with enough campy writing to stay in your memory past its completion.

Where HFR suffers most is that it attempts to coast so hard on its visual and thematic style, that it ends up with often flat and near-insufferable character dynamics. Chai is exactly who you expect him to be- a jabbering protagonist who bickers with the female lead despite being stronger together. These tropes are not explored, subverted or even seemingly acknowledged. The characters are simply action figures with a little button to say something that their personality would say in response to any moment.

The Rhythm combat is also underexplored- All music stays within one genre, and it fails to even give that longevity. All rhythm is stuck to basic 4/4 timing, save for the occasional doubletime or QTE. You are never inputting combos like a lead guitarist, only like a rhythm guitarist. For the first 10 hours of the game, you barely have the resources for more than a few combos which means the combat is crazy repetitive up until late game.

With all that said, it hits its stride after the middle point of the game and without elaborating much it's the exact type of game the world needs more of. Short, contained stories with a unique central mechanic and a clearly invested creative team who takes the time to add charm to every level- props that bob and weave with the rhythm, seamless transitions between cutscenes and gameplay, and a willingness to not drag out levels longer than needed.

the modern sandbox genre struggles to innovate which is insane given terraria handed everyone the blueprint to perfection over a decade ago

Early on, this game will seem unfocused, weird and gimmicky. They drop you into missions and you finish it then wonder "is that it?"

If you embrace the premise, and view it through the lens of a co-operative game, you will quickly learn why the missions can become so fun. Each dwarf has advantages and weaknesses, and each dwarf can cover eachothers weaknesses. Missions require very active participation from everyone in the cave. The scout needs the engineer to make platforms, the gunner needs the driller to create pathways, etc. The more thorough a team is about collecting resources, the more everyone benefits in terms of currency, materials, xp and so on. These resources serve as the players progression, weapon unlocks, cosmetics, everything that matters is 100% accessible through gameplay- no real money needed. You can unlock everything yourself, in a timely manner, and you can always have something to do, and the game doesnt gouge or entice you into doing it like a second job. there is no FOMO, no predatory daylies or battle passes, there is just gameplay and then rewards for gameplay.

But most importantly? it's a FUN game. the dwarves can interact verbally, they can reach insane topspeeds and they can do insane damage to the enemies, environments or their own teammates. It is a game that approves of any playstyle, the objectives are diverse and challenging but not frustrating (mostly- save for korloks and corruptors). Just play it

Bucket list of FPS gaming contender

Core of the gameplay loop is platforming and exploration. Combat is present, fun and simplified but not usually necessary outside of boss fights. Very much Hat in Time / Hollow Knight inspired. If you like Gamecube-esque platformers, this is an easy purchase.

Biggest downsides are a lack of direction makes it easy to often become lost, and reliant on online guides to find out where to go next. Several points in the game I had to essentially stop in place and spin around looking for the required item(s) I missed/passed. Aside from those moments, it was very fun.

fun

A serviceable shooter that at its best moments eclipsed the likes of overwatch in enjoyability However, today it is a product that seems so unconfident in its own premise that it may as well not have any core identity. The visual polish is middling and overtly busy, the game mechanics 'feel' weightless and clunky, the many many hero additions are in reality just remixes of existing mechanics save for the occasionally interesting hero gimmick.

These days hi-rez may as well be in maintenence mode with this, other than hero additions you can't expect frequent map additions or updates, you can't expect interesting events or worldbuilding animations, you can only really expect lots of skins, most of which are basically inaccessible to anyone without a wallet.

What could have flourished into a mechanically interesting competitor in the market has seemed to find itself content as an alternative that lacks the quality, innovation, or style necessary to justify playing it over any of its competitors.

Disintegration is a promising concept that isn't quite able to make the most of its own potential. The idea you pilot a gravcycle (podracer, basically) while 'commanding' a squad through various missions is in itself very fun. It's almost like you're hovering over a halo/destiny mission giving support to the team as they progress.

The cast of characters are well established and feature promising dynamics, but the game doesn't quite make the most of each character and in many cases tends to underdevelop or undershowcase their personalities/friendships. I enjoyed every instance of banter and interaction they had with eachother, but often found myself wishing they did it more than the only sparse, acutely timed situations they chose to.

The game's pacing is agreeable. The first 3 or so missions don't do the full game justice, so try not to assume you know the full game too early. They introduce a good amount of grunt enemies and 'miniboss' enemies, but unfortunately nothing much in the way of a full boss or proper challenge. They do give you a proper selection of weapons and abilities to change things up, which helps keep you actively learning rather than getting too used to the game.

Most unfortunately the delivery of an online PvP seems to be undercut by the egregiously low playerbase. I can't fathom they actually expected for it to ship to a booming online community with the little advertisement/incentivizing they did for the mode. I felt and still feel an online pvp with these mechanics would be tremendous fun, and i'll be keeping my eye on it for the opportunity to ever experience it. Hopefully they do more to fix this, whether by slashing the price down or by adding pvp content over time to reel people in. As it is, though, don't buy it with the expectation to ever even FIND an online match.

An immensely strong foundation for this early access title. If they continue to build upon it, it will be an absolute no brainer purchase for anyone who enjoys strategic RPG's. At first the GUI and even strategy-building itself can be rather intimidating, but after a few run attempts things start to click.

Most of the available mysteries are solidly unique, and assuming they intend to stack more potential mysteries to solve (on top of the unique endings of each), the game will have lengthy replayability in the future (it already has a reasonable amount of it, for an early access title)

The art and 'story' designs are quite evidently faithful to the work of Junji Ito, I would go as far to say that they designed each story quite cleverly in this way (each ending feels like something Ito would have written, thus one ending may shed further light on the bigger story than the first ending you got did)

The stat system is fairly fun and intuitive, for those not familiar with rpg stats this may be somewhat confusing but it's an interesting dynamic to have to consider whether to raise your charisma to gather info from people or to raise your perception to be more attentive at your surroundings. It can be a little frustrating when RNG rails your skillchecks, resulting in constant failures out of your control, but I would assume the luck stat plays a role in this as well.

Combat is very fun, perhaps it's been done in other RPGs but for me it was a new experience (essentially having an allocated amount of time you get to fill with various actions before locking in). I found myself mostly dodging and using 1-2 attack actions, the other combat options have more niche utility (ritual movements can seem hard to justify on the average run). It's also influenced by what spells/allies you've gathered, but those are sparse resources that come at a cost to use so you can't just amass OP abilities and then spam them.

The primary things the game would do well to expand upon are the amount of mysteries to follow (especially the unique ones that break away from the standard investigating-areas-format), as well as expanding the character building aspect some more (you tend to collect the same handful of equippable items, namely masks and clothes) to make runs less homogenous over time. I really dig the stories and how you gain more context to them every attempt, though sometimes it feels like I progressed the story by just doing seemingly random events until I stumbled into something important, so perhaps a few more tailored events in between the normal encounters would be an appreciated addition.

There's a lot of reading in this game (as there is in most oldschool RPG's), but they're smart and keep each dialogue box brief and quick, so you can focus on planning ahead while appreciating the art for every encounter.

i like t he dispsenser