Recent reviews by Mr. Tennis Balls

Fantastic game. Super unique concept and the team clearly put a lot of effort into every aspect of the game. Would highly recommend.

I’m usually not that into card games and most stories in video games have me spamming the A button.

But Inscryption? One of the most engaging and clever games I’ve ever played.

It's just really really pleasant and well done, from the engaging writing and beautiful art style to the challenging gameplay and great music. Would easily recommend this anyone.

It's just really, really good. If you enjoy great art, great music, and great gameplay you should buy this game. Be warned, lots of backtracking just like any other metroidvania game. You'll need a healthy amount of patience for boss fights.

Let me just say that for the first 2 hours I started playing this game, it was magical. The art style was charming, the gameplay felt familiar yet somehow fresh and enjoyable, and the potential for exploration and discovery through interplanetary travel was extremely exciting. But after a short while, I slowly began to realize how poorly designed many of the fundamental aspects of the game were, and my experience gradually devolved from joyful adventure to monotonous chore.

Starbound is like Terraria in that there is a huge focus on exploration, discovery, and creativity. Unfortunately, I would say that it is mediocre at best in all of these areas.

Much of the story missions are extremely tedious and repetitive, namely, the reoccuring mission where you're expected to find a village for each distinct race to scan for "clues." The main issue is there's no guarentee that a single village will contain enough information so often times you'll be hopping on your ship, traveling to a specific type of planet for that race, holding your left or right arrow key until you find a village (if any), walk around some more to scan it for clues, realize there aren't enough clues in that village, begrudgingly hop back onto your ship, sit and ponder why you're doing this to yourself as you wait for your ship to arrive at the next planet, walk around aimlessly again hoping to find another village, and pray that it has enough new information to scan so you can finally complete your quest. I am not exaggerating when I say that this takes up HOURS of the main story line. It is one of the worst possible ways to incentivize your player to explore and discover. It turns the joy and excitement of exploration and discovery into a grinding bore. It is - at best - a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ chore.

There's also the issue of how you even access certain planets in the first place. In order to safety access certain types of planets, you are required to have specific Environmental Protection Packs (or EPPs) that protect you from the conditions of said planet. I initially thought this concept was pretty neat as it added a sense of realism and depth to the game. Of course, this was before I realized how excruciating the process of obtaining these items would be. So in order to create these items, you simply make them at a crafting station, so easy enough you just gather the necessary materials to make it right? Except that because of how the crafting system is designed, these EPPs become increasingly tedious to make as you progress towards the higher tier planets.

You want to craft a Heating EPP to access low temperature planets? Alright just teleport to the main hub, buy some material from the general store, fly to a Tier 4 or 5 planet, gather the necessary ore, travel to a Magma biome planet, hunt down specific monsters for their material, and oh you'll have to sacrifice your Radiation EPP as it's part of the recipe.

Oh, you want to keep your Radiation EPP so you can still access radiated planets? Alright just make another one, but first you gotta fly to Tier 3 or 4 planet, mine some more ore, got to a Forest biome, hunt monsters again, and uhhhh you gotta use up your Breathing EPP for the recipe.

Ah shoot, you want to keep your Breathing EPP to continue explore underwater planets? That's OK! Just make another one! All you gotta do is get on your ship again, fly to the nearest Tier 2 or 3 planet, go mining, find Garden planet, hunt monsters, smelt glass, eat ass, alright you're good.

Alright sweet, after hours of traveling, mining, and farming for material, you can finally craft your Heating EPP!!... What's that? You don't have the specific Tier 3 crafting station required to even make the Heating EPP?! DON'T WORRY!!! YOU JUST GOTTA FLY ON OVER T- AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!

Don't buy this game.

There are many other issues such as the large array of weapons that feel incredibly bland or unsatisfying to use, the fact that you can't sprint in one direction while facing the opposite direction which makes kiting unnecessarily difficult, weapon stats are purposely not displayed on half of the legendary weapons for whatever reason. I mean I'm nitpicking at this point but it's the combination of all these small, annoying design choices (and the big, annoying ones) that really drags down the quality of the experience.

Anything less than a 10/10 rating would be considered a federal crime.