Catch-Up Time...

Hello everyone! Things have been beyond busy for me these days, so I just haven't had the time to stay on top of my writing. It's been a growing issue in the past couple years if you've been paying attention, but this year the full brunt has come down on me. However, I still aspire to have thoughts on everything that might earn a spot anywhere on any GOTY list out there for context, so here's the plan: I'm going to go through my whole backlog of things awaiting reviews and just hammer them out here in ridiculously rapidfire format without ceremony. Hopefully this will free up my queue enough so that I can start writing proper reviews for the things I've yet to complete. Cool? Cool. Let's go!

Thymesia:

Thymesia is called a soulslike, but it's really more like a sekirolike with an emphasis on parrying and wearing down enemies and bosses gradually. I had a great time with it, but it's unfortunately hampered by some technical oddities that you're likely to expect from middle-tier games in this genre. The framerate is unsteady, sound design isn't great, graphics are muddled, etc. Typical AA soulslike issues. But worse than the less than stellar technical package, the whole game is held back by this overwhelming sense of either laziness or severe lack of funding. The entire game is basically 3-4 levels, with crucial boss fights and additional levels hidden behind sub quests: remixes of the levels where you're dropped into the level from a different starting point. As satisfying as it is to play the primary gameplay loop, it leaves a lot to be desired when delivered in such a small, unpolished package.

7.0/10

TemTem:

TemTem wears its influence on its sleeve. Obviously it's a Pokemon clone, but it truly is respectable as its own thing, because it brings some quality of life improvements to what is now an overdone formula, but it also puts all of its chips down on some of the weaker elements of that formula. So though a clone, nobody can call it a copy! Temtems have types, just like Pokemon, and each type has its strengths and weaknesses. Winning battles against other tamers is dependent on both knowing your type matchups and having decent stats for your temtems. That latter point is where the game falters a bit. There's a heavy, heavy emphasis on stats and hidden values and things like that, which are the worst parts of the Pokemon games. This game is technically an MMO, so logic would indeed dictate that there would be an emphasis on the competitive side of the gameplay, but it worms its way in to the campaign a bit too much for my liking. This is partially because of one of the game's positives: it actually poses a challenge. Every battle in this game is a double battle, and enemy AI seems to have a brain, so you're not going to be steamrolling through routes unless you're reeeeally overgrinding. Another positive is the way the game changes Pokemon's power point mechanic. Rather than being tied down to 5 uses of x attack or 15 uses of y attack, every attack takes up a certain amount of a Temtem's stamina bar. Certain attacks take up x amount of turns to be usable, some don't. So in any given turn, you can choose to attack, use an item, or have a temtem rest. Resting restores stamina, which is likely something you'll want to do. If you use up more stamina than you have available, your temtem will take damage equal to that overage and not be able to move the next turn. It's a risk/reward system that I found really compelling, especially since it meant I didn't have to go back and heal to restore move uses! The biggest issue, I found, was that the game has serious pacing issues. You'll get to see the final evolutions of certain TemTem well before you have the ability to see it through evolution, and battles grant you so little experience and money that you're really going to struggle if you don't find one of the handful of ridiculously high-level grinding areas and spend a lot of time there. But all-in-all, as a Pokemon clone, it's quite respectable, and I enjoyed it quite a bit.

8.0/10

Saint's Row:

I haven't finished this infamously bad reboot of the original Saint's Row, but I also never played any of the prior titles, so I figured I might have a different perspective. I had a decent time playing it, but Moist Critikal said it best when he said that there would be people like me, but eventually it would still wear out its welcome with those people. The writing isn't great, the characters are barely characters, the open world is middling, it takes way too long to get anywhere, the mission design is bad, the graphics aren't particularly good, the game is buggy as all hell, and really, just everything it does that isn't bad is just mediocre at best. Not a game I'd give a recommendation to.

5.0/10

Ooblets:

I've actually been supporting Ooblets since early access, so I've poured many, many hours into this game before this year. Imagine a cross between Pokemon and Animal Crossing and you basically have this game. You maintain a farm and grow crops, and you collect little plant creatures called Ooblets to help you on the farm and go up against npcs in dance battles. It's laid back, it's wholesome, it helps you wind down after a long day, and I found it infinitely rewarding. The only real issues I have with the game are that resource acquisition becomes harder and harder to do as you automate your farm more, and certain ultra rare Ooblets that only appear once in a blue moon can be missed entirely because you don't have the required materials to challenge them to a dance battle. Both of these are by design, but they still annoyed me. 

9.0/10

Rollerdrome:

Rollerdrome should've been right up my alley. It's made by the same development team that made OlliOlli World, and the gameplay is a rollerblading shooter ripe for fast-paced action. However, I didn't even finish the game because it just doesn't work the way it should. The controls are detrimental to the gameplay experience, and there's frankly too much chaos AND too much precision accuracy required to be fun. 

-No Score-

Way of the Hunter:

Another one that I didn't finish, Way of the Hunter is completely gorgeous to look at, and if you're like me and you love the experience of being out in the wilderness, it provides an excellent open world to just exist in. But early on I decided it was probably too realistic a hunting simulation for someone with zero experience like me. If you do know a thing or two about the sport, however, you might enjoy this one!

-No Score-

Sifu:

Another one that I didn't finish, Sifu just...wasn't for me. The combat was just too clunky, the dodge was just too ineffective at putting distance between you and enemies, and even if these things were perfect, the roguelike structure is just an automatic failure unless it stands out, which this one doesn't.

-No Score-

So there you have it. I hope I don't have to resort to such measures in the future, but for now, that's what it took to get all caught up! See you all next time.