Recent reviews by SCARY and EVIL

Simply perfect. Everything I could have hoped for out of the premise, and then some.

Excellent and expressive art all around (especially that trailer, like--seriously--it's the best,) and the in-game gallery adds some sweet concept art and cute bonuses. The UI is absolutely flawless, and I genuinely wish my Discord looked like that. Though, I do wish I could actually leave likes on the photos from the Onlyfans parody, but that's just a silly little idea.

Character creation existing at all is amazing While the actual character design portion is a bit limited (like--come on--let my eyes be grey, you have an option for pink of all things, please add grey,) I still had plenty of fun with it. The real juice kicks in when you get to your character bio. You get to choose your gender, pronouns, and even what words of visual appeal you want used to describe you, but that's not all. You also get the ability to FILL THEM IN with WHATEVER YOU WANT. This is so cool! I genuinely cheered when I saw that. It's something that seems so simple, yet something I've never seen in any other game (though, I don't play visual novels often--so I'm not sure if this is more common in the genre.) I know that--for most players--this is just pickles when compared to everything else on offer, but--personally--I greatly appreciate it, and I sincerely applaud the developers for making a game where I feel welcome.

As for the story itself, while it isn't anything particularly revolutionary or groundbreaking, it is just about perfect for what it sets out to achieve. I genuinely felt a bond with this fictional dumbass within the time I spent. Many of the responses genuinely felt like things I would say, which certainly helped with immersion. There were so many times I laughed (accusing the grim reaper of being a filthy Homestuck was particularly memorable,) and even more that just made me go, "Awww." Oh, and this fictional character genuinely flustered me at times too. Now, I'm not saying that when he started flirting with me I stammered out an absolutely pathetic whimpery equivalent of a verbal keysmash--or anything oddly specific like that--but I was a bit blushy at times.

The music is nice. Not too little to be boring, not too much to take away the focus. Just about perfect for a game like this.

Overall, please play this. I beg of you. It is quite literally free. I am so glad that I was lucky enough to find this just before the Kickstarter campaign for an expansion was announced. True story, I played through the first two days, and was immediately convinced to back it. The campaign ended just yesterday, but I still highly encourage wishlisting the upcoming expansion if you end up liking the base game. Maybe I need to play more visual novels.

tldr i want the grim reaper so badly you have no idea god please

Quite a fun time, with a fair bit to think about after the fact.
The gameplay is solid. It presents a juggling act--eerily similar to a Five Nights At Freddy's game--but veering away from the horror to focus fully in on the stress aspect. Every bit of standard gameplay perfectly fall in line with each other. Admittedly, it can become slightly tedious when the game presents little to do, and some gimmicks go from stressful to annoying, (the thunderstorm in particular was a bit frustrating,) but overall, there aren't any glaring flaws.
The story is nice, and leaves a lot of room for discussion and real life parallels. Like any good piece of media surrounding a political struggle, Not For Broadcast presents multiple options, with each one having real pros and cons that require actual thought. Show this game to two different people, and there's a fair chance they will both arrive at differing conclusions on which of the two main factions is better for society.
However, one of my main flaws with the game actually does lie within the story, in that it seems to have a bit of an identity crisis. It feels as though the writers couldn't decide whether they wanted Not For Broadcast to be a political drama or an absurdist comedy, and simply tried to compromise by including elements of both, sacrificing the ability to truly perfect either one. Of course, in some areas, the contrast between the comedy and drama is intentionally done to create a sense of disillusion with the system, but it really does feel odd to see multiple protestors, both peaceful and violent, shot to death in the same game where you see a town renowned for being the smelliest on the planet. This doesn't ruin the game by any stretch of the definition, but it is a weak point in an otherwise nigh flawless experience.
The game looks nice. Everything you need to know is clearly visually communicated, and the attention to detail is on point. The office and outside scenery changing depending on the events of the game is a nice touch. As well, the actors did an amazing job. Each and every one of them really do feel like something you could see on a real news broadcast.
Another sore spot is the file size, though I'm not sure how much could be done about that. Regardless, ~45 gigabytes is absurd. I would have gladly accepted for the videos to be compressed a bit to get that towards a more reasonable storage requirement. (Might have been more realistic anyhow.)
The accessibility settings are greatly customizable, in a way that I've mainly only seen in AAA games. While I personally didn't do much with these settings, I'm glad the options exist for those who want or need it.
Overall, definitely worth your time. Long live Advance.

Fun game. Tried playing it like Democracy 4, died instantly. Tried playing it with my actual beliefs, won easily. Once you've beaten it the first time, there is little else to it, but the experience is worth trying out, especially at the low price of none.

This game about a depressed baby who cries on poopoo and spiders is a strong contender for one of the best games of all time. Let that sink in.

Ok actually this game without dlc is basically an incomplete game.

Very cool game, symbols can speen. Fun to play when you kinda just don't care that much and want to see numbers go up.

Do note that most of my play time on this game is from a friend's account, so I have somewhat more experience with this game than it may seem.

The physics are fun, with a relatively low skill floor and high skill ceiling, and are also highly consistent, rarely ever functioning differently than the player would think they should.

There is always a risk of falling down and losing all of your progress, but it's mitigated by how fun it is to get past the obstacles, even after countless falls.

The world is almost entirely made out of seemingly pre-made assets, which combines with the narrator to make a great commentary on the short attention span of the internet.

Speaking of the narrator, he is always a joy to hear, even if I wish he had more to say at times, especially for bad players like me, who will often spend long amounts of time on a single obstacle, not gaining or losing too much progress.

As for the highly advertised frustration aspect, I don't see it. I am a person with high amounts of anger issues, and I can be set off by the smallest of things, but this game rarely ever did that to me. If anything, I would be happy to be able to take a bit of a break with the easier challenges. Of course, this is highly subjective, and I know that I am somewhat of a black sheep here, as a majority of people definitely seem to get extremely angry at this game.

The only real complaints I have are that some of the music feels a bit intrusive, and that spinning your mouse in a circle for an hour isn't always fun for your wrist.

Overall, a very fun and rewarding game, definitely worth the price of admission. I believe it's a game that everybody should try at least once, especially since you can get a feel for if you like it or not within less than 2 hours.

You already know this is a good game, you don't need the reviews to tell you that.

kity

Repentance is neat I guess. I think that it would be best to just write out a simple list of pros and cons, because otherwise this review would have the length of a Smash fanfiction.

+++ Amazing music as usual.
+++ All around graphical upgrade, making the game look better than ever.
+++ More characters in 1 update than any dlc before it. From the few I have unlocked, the tainted characters are really neat.
+++ Alt paths are amazing.
++ Some of the new bosses are really cool, with bosses like Baby Plum and Mother being some of my favorites in the game.
++ Some really cool items, my favorites so far being the Red Key, Bot Fly, Blood Oath, and False PHD.
++ A bunch of neat reworks to older items, making quite a few bad items viable, and adding new synergies.
+ Hard mode actually is harder now! I like the shot speed changes.
+ The final ending is really nice I like it.
= Nerfs to many items, some of which were necessary, some of which just make the game less fun.
= Some other weird balance decisions, which are a bit of a mixed bag.
- The Beast is pretty cool the first time, but just gets repetitive after a while.
- The Wavy Cap gives me headaches in real life :(
- Many of the completion marks for tainted characters don't unlock anything at all, but it is entirely possible they may add some unlocks later in the form of booster packs (please edmund?)
-- Some of the ways you need to unlock things are way too cryptic, with Knife Piece 1 and Key Shards in particular being near impossible to find out about without using a guide. I know that it's basically series tradition at this point, but it still sucks.
-- Most of the new challenges aren't very fun.
-- Jacob and Esau are really not fun or intuitive at all to play as, and really do not fit the game's design well.
-- Not really the fault of this dlc in particular, and more just an issue with how the dlcs were handled in general, but you also have to buy two worse dlcs if you want this one.

Overall, I think this is maybe the best dlc yet, despite its flaws. I got it day one and I don't regret it one bit. If you are struggling with the difficulty of the game as is, maybe wait until mod support comes out. Otherwise, I would recommend this to anybody who likes Isaac.