Recent reviews by Vinaru

Would I recommend this game?
Maybe - it's made with a lot of love but for me it's also lacking in everything.
So before getting it look a bit into what it offers.

The universal good part is the graphics and style.
It's pretty but the >game< itself is sadly extremly basic and I feel like they could have needed someone with more insight in actual gameplay and narrative design.
From a technical point it plays smoothly but it's also very repetitive and bland. So get it if you are interested in the style and want a short but light adventure were you can turn your head off and just don't get challanged by story or gameplay.
It's cute sometimes funny and the story while simple is engaging enough to cary itself over the duration.

Also on a side not; the game often get's mentioned like "this is a new Breath of Fire" - no. Nothing but maybe the art style is like a BoF so don't fall for that comparison.

For the parts I had problems with:
Combat can be breezed through without any tacitcs and the quests are so easy since everything is on a narrow road.
The whole structure repeats itself over and over and for such a short game that's not great. Simple gameplay is good and fine but there's a thin line towards boring.
Towns are big but you have like 5 npcs to interact with the rest is dead and you search that one where the interact button pops up.
A lot of empty text with the beggining of a narrative and world building but it dosen't have time to develop into anything meaningful. There's like two type of puzzles repeated - I was very bored towards 3/4 of it. Characters are simple but likable could use some more interactions. And the ending was sadly very anti-climactic.

(I don't think "it's for new players of the genre" is a valid point that was made. That it just feels lacking has nothing to do with an entry level game. Lots of peoples first jrpgs where "more" and that wasn't a problem)

A great tactical RPG with an extremely complex and compelling story!
You can see how this has influenced a whole genre. So while it is fun and deep, the gameplay is sadly lacking in some areas.

+ Story, deep, complex and a bit hard to get into, but worth it!
+ Split storylines depending on your decisions
+ Lots of characters, and quite well presented, especially given the limitations the Snes had with dialogue size.
+ The character systems are quite complex, some not really well explained, but you can do a lot!- Voice acting, art and music are good!

- It's slooow (I played it at 2-4x speed with cheat engine because I couldn't stand the speed of the combat)
- Getting some characters without a guide is .... how? Get a guide!
- I wish the terrain and weather had a bit more of an effect on combat.
- Combat gets a bit repetitive towards the second half, it drags a bit with the amount of battles

Hades is amazing, one of the best Rouge-Lite games I have played.
It's also great to see how each Supergiant game gets better and better.

+ Fun, skilful and fluid combat
+ Smooth progression curve and reward system
+ Good art style and music
+ Lots of dialogue and nice characters
+ Lots of ways to customise the difficulty

- A little more boss variety would be nice
- Screen can get a bit cluttered with effects

The combat is extremely fluid, smooth and above all fun. It rewards skill, but also the power progression curve is very smooth, so you always feel like you are getting better. Every weapon feels different. Every run feels different with all the random upgrade.
Lots of dialogue and charming characters. The story is also quite compelling.
Boss fights, while wuite fun could be a little more varied, but that's about the only complaint I could think for this game. Rouge-Likes like isaac have a bit more customisation and replayability, but Hades shines in combat gameplay and just charme. It's also quite pretty. Cerberus best boy.

So Legend of Mana is a weird one, and I tried to like it, but in the end I just can't.
It's pretty, the soundtrack is amazing and it has a certain charm, but the gameplay is broken.
The approach of this game feels extremly nonsensical in it's structure and presentation of stories and dialouge.
With a guide you can smooth out a lot of the problems, but the weird presentation of the story is something you either like or dislike. It also has some performance issues.

Positves:
+ Music, it's Yoko Shimomura enough said.
+ Art
+ Deep systems for customising things, pets, crafting and such. (and extremely convoluted)


Negatives:
- Dialogue/story presentation.
Often it doesn't make sense or you have no idea what's going on. Favourite quote from the game's diary that describes this game perfectly is "A girl went up a tower to see her past or something like that. I'm lose track of what's going on...".
You get thrown in most of the story bits seemingly random and even after a huge chunk into the game you still have no idea why.

- Guidance and map design.
What doors and paths are is often hard or impossible to see, try and error. Dungeons are boring confusing corridors. Even SoM2 was better at this.

- Complete lack of direction or flow
Talk to the wrong person at the wrong time, bad luck getting locked out of a quest. Just why game. It's almost esoteric in the sense that you have to feel that you need to get into this random room in this random room in a particular dungeon to get a quest or to progress. It's an extreme waste of time without a guide.

This is a case where I wish Steam would allow a maybe vote. It's not bad game and this rating leaves me conflicted.
I really tried to like this game, even finished it, since there is good stuff in here, but it's shackled down by a lot of problems and frustrated me too much for a thumbs up.

What it comes down to is a lack of polishing and refining of the mechanics and ideas.
Story, combat, world-building- good ideas in every part so it promises more than it's delivers.
Often it feels way more restrictive than say old Baldurs Gate games, despite it trying to be more sandboxy.
Get it in a sale and see if you like it, the multiplayer, while also lacking, has some nice ideas.
There are a lot of mods which can make the game a lot more appealing.

+ World/Setting
+ Nice music most of times
+ good voice acting
+ Skills and classes
+ Visuals are nice (so it can get a bit to flashy and disorienting in combats)
+ The sandbox nature of the game leaves room for some creative gameplay options (but is also restricting the game, it's weird)
+ Good Mod support

- Story and plot is flat, overall the writing could use more depths.
- Character stories are also kinda bad and spread out, there isn't much there it feels so forced at times
- Group banter is almost non-existent
- The persuasion system is so bad, also the attitude system is kinda useless
- Combat is a weird one - offering lot's of strategy (or promises) but also forcing you in a tight script of how things have to work. It often feels so restricting and dosen't make sense some other times. It also discourages preparation.
- Unpolished, especially the last act suffers greatly
- There are so many small things which restrict you or willingly forces, it's really hard to describe
- The ending bugged out and forgot choices, it's also boring and feels as rushed as the rest of Act 4

Ori 2 is a great Metroidvania whith it's focus on platforming, movement and generel atmosphere.
As a sequel it tries some new things but mostly sticks to what the first game implemented and improves them.
So if you liked the first, it's the same but bigger and improved!

Graphics, music and platforming are it's strong suit.
The movement is incredibly fluid and the whole game brims with atmosphere.
While the combat is hugely improved compared to the first game it's not the games strongest suit either.
The story is good, at least the how the whole game feels alive and vibrating with a lot of background work from visuals and such. The actual story around Ori could have been better or well more world building involving their story since it's hinted at points.

+ Fun platforming and movement with intersting skills to traverse levels
+ Graphics, atmosphere, visual desing in genreal are amaizing
+ Music
+ Nice power progression curve - both movement and combat

- Combat feels a bit lackluster. Bosses often have werid and frustrating hit boxes
- The story is a bit bare-bones and predictable, sad scenes don't hit hard because you kinda know what and how it will happen
- More world building around Ori, the spirits, the decay and the world as a whole would be nice
- The auto save feature is a step back from 1 where you clold make you own save spots

If you like platforming, Metroidvanias and a visually very appealing game then I can recommend Ori 2 despite it's few flaws!

This is hands down the best Metroidvania I have played.
It's hard for me to come up ith things to criticise since it's just a perfect and well done game from start to finish.

+ Atmosphere!
+ The broken Kingdom brims with story and lore when you look for it
+ Combat is fun with lots of builds
+ Good enemy designs
+ Exploration is fun with lots of Secrets and a good progression curve
+ Platforming is not to punishing or hard
+ Memorable Characters
+ Graphics
+ Music
+ LOT of content

- Some backtracking gets annyoing
- The last "dungeon" felt out of place
- Godmaster DLC hides story behind boss rushes (I don't like these sorry)


The atmosphere of this game is incredible with that Souls like feeling of wonder and ambiguity.
The world itself tells it's story slowly as you make your way down Hollownest - the more you look for it the more you will see of it.
Despite being a somber setting the game never gets to grim since it balances it out with quirky characters and hopeful elements which blend into a great mix.

The combat is simple but creative and effective, it rewards skill but as far as the main story never gets to hard. Charms are the games way of customizing your character and they leave a huge way to build your character. This along with fun and a good variaty of enemies makes for a very nice combat mechanic.

The exploration is smooth and has a very nice progression through the game without hand holding. Lot's of secrets and shortcuts keep several backtracks interesting for the most part. Fast Travel points are a bit few but at the most key locations. The different areas are distinctive and leave for quite the change in scenerie. Compared with other games of this genre the platforming feels lighter and not as punishing since the focus is more at fighting.

Awesome game.

One of my favorit games and no matter how long I played it it's still fun and rewarding.

If you're a fan of challanging Rouge-Likes I can 100% recommend this game.
The huge item pool ad creative enemies and characters will offer lot's of ways to get through the Game.
And while you play you discover more and more broken ways to get through - this also means that espacially in the beginning it will be harder since you have to unlock stuff and get a hang of enemies and how things work. If you have a short temper this could be a bit aggravating so keep that in mind that it's a lot of trial and error at first.

+ Lot of characters
+ Huge huge item pool and unlockables with fun synergies
+ A lot of ways to get through the game, to break the game or just to have fun
+ Good randomized level layout with some fun secrets
+ Challanges and different modes
+ Charming and gross art style
+ It's still getting updates and content

- Some unfairer enemie desings
- Danny Baranowsky music of the older flash Isaac is just better in any way

After finishing Dishonored 2 I was really anticipating this game. Since the Outsider is a huge deal in the lore of Dishonored and Billy and Daud are interesting characters from the first game I had high hopes.

I would say get it on sale but I can't recommend this game either way. It's not bad but just personally a huge disappointment in several ways.

+ Difficulty options
+ Billy's skill set even if unutilized is fun
+ Art Direction is great
+ Some good lore

- Recycled and bland levels
- Totally butchered two characters story arcs
- One impacting emotional moment was done in a one frame painting with some voice over
- The ending is bad, just bad and dissapointing
- No chaos meter, no consequences for your actions

Not often I had games where I was just angry after finishing it. Mass Effect 3 might be the last one I had that but this game clearly managed to do this and its a shame since it had all the good stuff laid out for it..
The level design feels flat with way less ways to finish them - or at least have interesting places and secrets to discover. They recycle levels from 2 (and made them worse) and this game, with only 6 missions this feels bad. There are zero creative gimmicks in them like they had in 2. Usually with an expansion you try new stuff or improve the base game. None of that is present here. They don't even include a chaos meter, there is no consequenses for anything. The sklii-set of Billy are fun but some powers feel useless. One lets you take over other humans but it's hardly used for such a skill where you could do tons of stuff with.

But not only is the gameplay flat the story is bad.
It's hard to stay spoiler free but they do such a disservice to two of their main characters is just sad.
The huge lore point which is even in the title - don't get you hopes up. The last level is so boring and the ending with big "revelation" is just rushed and feels utterly dissapointing.
It's sad since I love the first two games a lot.

This game feels like a rushed attempt to get rid of their old characters and plot points to wrap it up which is sad since it could have offered a much more satisfying conclusion.

A great Sequel to the amaizing first installment. A good immersive sim game gives you interesting level designs and ways to tackle these - Dishonored 2 achieves exactly that and has some of the most creative levels I've seen in the genre so far. The skills are fun and the lore and world-building in the background are good! Sadly the characterization and story are a bit flat.

+ Level Design
+ Skills and the options to play peaceful or brute
+ Amaizing gimmicks in several levels to spice up the base gameplay
+ Rich on background lore
+ Design and graphical detail
+ Great variaty in difficulty options

- More variety in offensive skills and weapons compared to non- leathal
- No option to play around with light sources
- Some levels feel bland compared to the great ones, espacially when used for more the one mission
- Characterization feels flat for both the protagonists and villans - they tried but it could have been more
- The first game had more unique ways to deal with key targets
- The ending and last level feel a bit rushed