Recent reviews by the oatist

the wheel of fate jammed and i'm stuck here forever it seems

a shiningly rare example of a game that is truly "cinematic" without sacrificing its medium idenity as a game

emotionally potent cinema at that. impressive

coco bandicoot join my polycule

i followed my instincts to make a half-drow bard as my first character and was immediately rainbow flag reacted

remember when they put wheatley from portal in this for no reason

the least challenging game in existence, on literally every level. a snoozefest of the highest degree.

it is so deliberately palatable to everyone and eschews any kind of element that could be considered divisive, in- and outside the game

it's boring, no kinder way to put it. for all the visual spectacle and beauty and the beautiful chinese voice acting, black myth: wukong offers no depth at all. it is a shallow pool with beautiful reflections that invites you to go through it like a theme park ride.

decidedly artless, apolitical, lacking substance. i regret my purchase.

SAY FELLAS

deeply frustrating but never enough to make me quit

having to jump through hoops to even access the game, then being forced to sit through a bunch of superfluous BS that literally nobody except impressionable 14 year olds will ever interact with before you can even ACCESS THE MAIN MENU let alone go into training mode or character select is an active insult to my time and patience

that's not even mentioning the predatory pricing models of additional content

absolutely terrible product design, get it out of my sight

it's about time someone wrote a review for this that isn't either a callously phrased "it wasn't for me" or a shallow comparison to other franchises. user reviews were a mistake and i resent gabe newell for making me read through the slop steam gremlins post constantly.

anyway

it is a side scrolling 3D hack n slash game. what we have before us is a product which does not stand out as fully unique, perfect, or revolutionary. what it does stand out as is adequately designed, moderately priced, and good looking. in the current era of game development and publishing i think people underestimate just how much these AA studios matter and benefit the medium. it is products like this that i never regret buying even if they don't end up having the staying power of the greatest hits of all time.

if you enjoy this type of game and the aesthetic speaks to you, you probably wanna play this. that said let me get down and descriptive:

you play as a sisterly bond that transcends life and death. you are a super soldier in the ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up fantasy military. a nuclear bomb has detonated in fantasy new york and you're the response team. little did you know, exposure to this fantasy radiation makes you become a ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up magical girl. also professor layton is there? i understand now why back covers of books are the way they are....

the game consists of a pretty tight game flow: traverse the linear levels, gather two types of currency and secret collectibles, while fighting increasingly complex and chaotic battles, and watch some cutscenes in between. you only have one profile, so you can new game+ before finishing the game on a different difficulty.

now the meat and potatoes. does it game? does it POP? eh....mostly. let's get the bad stuff out of the way first.

i won't lie to you, the camera angles are irritating. they are not good. no amount of genre-boner and love for the DmCs and Bayonettas of this world can fix what is broken. you will get annoyed at camera angles many times. you will have to do tedious platformer puzzles over and over because the stylistic camera and stark contrast lighting will make your spatial awareness fail in the most "OUGH" inducing way.

the combat itself is quite nice. you can easily intuit how things work, the control scheme is well thought out, and getting a good score after a chaotic and breakneck fight feels very satisfying, like you did genuinely earn that badge (though the scoring system is still a little inscrutable to me). if you love to REACT FAST and PRESS BUTTONS GOOD you'll have at least a passably good time. you will be pressing a Lot of buttons, fast. if your reaction times are not very good this game will make you feel bad.

the bosses are all fairly unique and well designed fights. however thanks to the chaotic nature of regular encounters they tend to feel a bit underwhelming in terms of challenge sometimes.

the weapon skills are a bit boring and generic, and tend to simply repeat across weapons. the weapon variations are actually required for dealing with certain types of enemies. this one i find interesting because a major point of criticism in these types of games has always been weapons feeling unnecessary. having to switch weapons in an already very chaotic fight is certainly a challenge, much more so than juggling all the other commands, to me personally. i would have preferred to memorize different combos to deal with different enemy types, but i digress.

there is also another set of skills which i will get into less as it ties directly into the story. these magic skills work a lot more passively and actually add variation to the game. by making use of a points alignment system, which skills you pick in these categories will have aesthetic and gameplay effects which is pretty cool.

some closing notes on other aspects of the game's quality:
-graphical fidelity is nice, framerate is stable throughout (i will post my specs below the review).

-the voice acting is stellar, if you can stop yourself from blaming the voice talent for some woefully generic lines with hollywood emotions (they're all lute lines. i'm sorry lute. you are the weenie, i still love you)

-the art direction is nothing special but very enjoyable. also a bit out there sometimes, definitely not afraid to be abstract and silly at times.

-the music is perfectly middling most of the time, but then they bust out some bangers for powerful moments.

-tasteful non-pornographic nip slip included


so overall i would say this game has a target audience. yes friends, it's another one for the queers and the auties.

see you next time!