Recent reviews by GodDogs

It's more Hollow Knight, and hard as hell. One of the best metroidvania's ever made, just like it's predecessor, and a kickass soundtrack. It's awesome.

This is a fun metroidvania with a steampunk atmosphere. The abilities are fun, controls are smooth, and the pixel art is fantastic! I also loved the music and want to get the soundtrack. I liked it that much.

But there's one thing that frustrated me - the story. There is a HEAVY amount of dialogue, especially at the beginning. It's an interesting story, with some cool characters, but this is the first metroidvania I've played that went so hard with the story. It interrupts the gameplay a lot within the first couple of hours. And the dialogue is very repetitive. There's a lot of back and forth about "the abyss" and how powerful it is and will destroy everything if it's opened, yadda yadda. A lot of characters say this back and forth. But worst of all is how it ends. It's basically a cliffhanger, and really unsatisfying, especially after all that buildup. Oh, and there's no voice acting. Not that it matters, but just mentioning it.

Besides the story though, the game is a lot of fun and worth checking out.

If I could give this game a mediocre score, I would. But between thumbs up or down, unfortunately, I have to go with down on this one.

Trek to Yomi is a side-scrolling, cinematic action game, with a style that copies old Japanese samurai movies. The aesthetic alone is the games primary appeal and is by far the best aspect of the game. It looks damn COOL and is unique among a sea of indie side-scrolling games. It's completely in black and white, which is both a pro and a con (more on that later). The game is not completely a side scroller, as half of the time you can move in a 3-D space, but from certain cinematic camera view points; then it transitions to 2-D for the combat, then back to 3-D, etc. It oozes atmosphere and the sole reason I completed it to the end.

So what sucks about it? The combat. The game asks precision from the player, but the input is so hit-and-miss I found myself baffled at the inconsistency. Sometimes an enemy will hit you and it takes only a few blocks of health. Other times it will be the same enemy, with the same move, and it will take off significantly more. Same with your attacks. Sometimes an enemy will take 2-3 hits and he goes down. Other times up to 10 or more, even though it's the same exact moves and button presses. Parrying is also a mixed bag. Sometimes you'll get a huge open window to parry, and other times none at all. I'd sometimes do combos really consistently and that's when the game was fun, only to be suddenly met with frustration as the combos suddenly stopped working. I was using the same combo, with the same timing, on the same controller (Xbox controller btw), and it just didn't connect a lot of the times. The combat is extremely inconsistent, and also highly repetitive.

Combine the combat frustrations with the black-and-white aesthetic, and sometimes enemies are straight up hard to see, including what kind of attack they were using. It caused some cheap hits and deaths, and I found myself more frustrated than having fun.

Luckily, the game is really forgiving. There are plenty of save spots and if you die, you start right away from the last save/checkpoint.

The story is decent as well, and the game offers 3 different endings depending on what choice you make 3/4ths of the way through the game.

I really wanted to love this game. I was hoping it would be something like a 2-D Ghost of Tsushima. If I were rating it on it's graphics and aesthetic alone, I'd highly recommend it, but since the gameplay kind of sucks, I just can't. It's a really short game, and I found myself wanting to just finish it, and that's not really a good sign of a good game. It needed some more time in the oven to tweak it's combat and controls, and offer a bit more variety.

A sequel to a game from 20 years ago that nobody would have expected to be made, let alone be any good. But here we are. If you haven't played the first game, you can pick it up for pennies usually, and it still holds up today. The sequel is just as good, if not better, with a few minor quality of life improvements. It's basically everything a sequel should be, 20 year gap or not.

The game picks up right where the first game left off, but also gives you a recap if you feel like skipping it (as well as that VR game, Rhombus of Ruin, which I did not play). It's a rock solid platformer that plays as smooth as Mario. The story is charming and humorous with the same Tim Burton-esque art style.

In short, I loved it. If you loved the first game, you'll love this one just as much!

I never thought this series would return, let alone with the original creator (Ron Gilbert). So naturally, I was super hyped when this was announced. A 6th Monkey Island game?! Hell yeah! Preordered for sure. It's one of my favorite series ever (the 3rd game being a timeless favorite of mine) and so yeah, this review is from a fan.

I'll say this, if you're also a fan, it's worth checking out. But it ultimately is my least favorite of the series.

Right off the bat, let's address that art style. You'll either love it or hate it. I'm more in the latter. I thought it was ok, but I never quite got used to it fully and wish they went with something else.

The puzzles were decent, though ultimately pretty easy overall. If you get stuck, there's a hintbook that won't give too much away unless you keep clicking on it, which is a nice touch. The interface and animations are smooth and the game has a ton of charm.

But what I found most disappointing were 3 things.
1. the humor. Past games made me laugh out loud a lot, but not this one. It's humor is more subdued and relies more on its charm and nostalgia.

2. Speaking of nostalgia, the game oozes with it. Too much so, in fact. The new areas aren't fleshed out much with maybe 1 or 2 exceptions.

3. and this is the biggest one - the games ending. It sucks. I won't spoil it, but it is by far the games most disappointing element. It's anti-climactic, not funny, not clever nor original. And really it's this reason alone that I'd give this game a "mediocre" review rating if I could.

Honestly, I'm just happy we got another game at all, but it wasn't quite the "Return" I was hoping for or wanting.

They Always Run is a sci-fi sidescroller action-adventure game (NOT a metroidvania, in case you were wondering). You play as Aiden, a mutant cyborg bounty hunter with 3 arms. The third arm plays into the games mechanics as well as the story, which the game focuses on a lot more than I expected. It's a great game with a few flaws I'll address.

First of all the pros: The graphics and music. This game nails it's art style, animation, and music that really sets the tone of the game. I always found myself being pulled in by its visuals and sound. Definitely top notch here.

The gameplay is a side scroller action game with some platforming thrown in. For the most part, the game nails these elements. You have upgrades you can buy as you gain more credits by taking bounties which the game linearly throws at you, as well as killing regular enemies and such. That third arm I mentioned works a few different ways. It can break certain walls, stun enemies, or do other contextual actions. Certain bosses will have a health meter and a stamina meter. You have the option to either kill the boss by traditional means, or you can use your arm to knock that stamina meter down to knock them out and take them in alive. It's a cool idea that I liked, making you feel like a bounty hunter in a sci-fi wild west of sorts. The mechanics are very fun, if a bit basic.

Now for the not-so good. The controls can be frustrating at times. I played with an Xbox controller, and the problem comes from the buttons being pressure sensitive. The game doesn't inform you of this though. So for example, if have to use your grappling hook, you can either use it to pull down a wall, or launch yourself towards a point of interest. The problem comes from certain life or death sequences. Need to pull down a wall? You have to hold down LB. Need to launch yourself? It's the same button, but you better tap it. It doesn't sound bad, but there were way too many cheap deaths because of this. I was hitting the button, but just not in the right way (and again, the game never tells you this. It just tells you what button to press). Not sure how it is on KB and M, but this was my experience.

Lastly is the story. For a side scroller action game, this has a LOT of dialogue, and none of it is voiced. It has speech bubbles that you can skip, but sometimes they come up at inopportune times, like when fighting something. It's hard to read something when I have something else more pressing happening. But the story itself is entertaining and I enjoyed it for the most part. However, the ending is abrupt and ends on a cliffhanger that felt like the devs just didn't have enough time to finish, so it might continue in a possible sequel or DLC. The ending sequence I LOVED, but was shocked that it just stopped when it did and the credits rolled. Which is unfortunate, because most of the rest of the game was pretty awesome.

I definitely recommend it if it looks cool to you. It just has some obvious flaws that are hard to ignore. Some cheap deaths with partially flimsy controls and an unfinished story, but a really cool and fun atmosphere that was great to play.

This little indie gem that I helped back on Kickstarter. It is a love letter to the old LucasArts games like Monkey Island. It's a light hearted adventure game (basically a point-n-click, but the controls are more like classic overhead Zelda) with a lot of charm. It's a short little game but you can tell a lot of heart and passion went into the development of it. If you have a soft spot for the old adventure games from LucasArts, you'll likely enjoy Cleo.

The Battletoads reboot is a mixed bag, but ultimately boils down to this - it isn't very fun. It's a beat-em-up that's ruined by some awful mini-games.

The old games were a mixed style of beat-em-up gameplay with a lot of variety, like racing levels, platforming, etc. They had a unique feel that had some notorious difficulty. And while this game tries its best to capture all of what the old games offered, unfortunately it doesn't do any of it very well.

The best part about it is the beat-em-up portions, but those sections surprisingly only take up about 1/4th of the game, and even then, other current reboots of the genre (like Streets of Rage 4) do it far better. They are decent enough though, but they get interrupted a lot by a lot of mini-games, which is by far the worst part of the game.

The mini-games are a mix between mind numbingly easy, boring, frustrating as all hell, or simply make no sense. Sometimes they pop up out of nowhere and before you know what's happening, you've failed it and have to try again. The game is littered with them and they suck. I found myself saying "why is this in the game?" a lot.

The artstyle and story are designed like a modern day cartoon show for kids ages 8-12, and the humor matches that demographic. I will say the animations are superb in that regard (whether you love or hate the style is up to you), but the game thinks it's way funnier than it actually is.

I love the original games, so naturally was excited for this one. I was open to the new look and some gameplay updates. Unfortunately, for every step forward, it takes two steps backward. I can only recommend it at a deep discount ($5 or less).

Also, there's NO online coop! Seriously?! It's only offline, couch co-op (which I'm glad is included, but why not online too??). In this day and age for this type of game, that's ridiculous.

On the plus side, if you're an achievement junkie and have an Xbox account, the game does unlock on both Steam and Xbox if you sign in with your Microsoft account, so there's that.

Ultimately though, I thought the game kinda sucked. 5/10

It's so bad it's good.

This game has some of the corniest voice acting and characters I've ever seen. It's hilariously stupid. Not entirely sure that's what the devs were going for, but regardless, this was some dumb, mindless fun. Gameplay wise, it's a derivative hack-n-slash similar to Diablo. You play as 2 vampire characters - one is melee, the other is ranged. You'll get some new weapons and gear with stat boosts and a few new abilities when you level up. It's extremely basic hack-n-slash RPG that does nothing new. You can switch between characters on the fly, or have another player join locally. Also, it's extremely short (3-4 hours).

It's an afternoons worth of fun stupidness, and really only recommended for that. Worth a few dollars max. If you're bored and want to play something with hilariously cheesy voice acting, check it out.

It's the spiritual successor to Castlevania Symphony of the Night. And it's awesome. Definitely a worthy follow up. Great music, bosses, level design, and most importantly - gameplay. If you're a Castlevania fan and have any doubts (like I did) then rest assured it's worth your time and money.