Beau Sierens – Google

Wow. What a beautiful film, overall There are some natural comparisons to make with Wall-E in both tone and subject. But a comparison I'll make is that, like Wall-E, the first hour or so of The Wild Robot is just stunningly beautiful, lovely storytelling that hits all the right emotional notes. Then the last 40 minutes goes about the business of being a bit more paint by numbers movie to have some conflict and wrap up a plot. The 3rd act isn't bad, just relatively ordinary compared to the first hour which is masterful. Visuals are amazing. Voice work is just right. Music is also stellar. All in all excellent even if the third act doesn't quite hold up to the rest.

Ultros brings some great new ideas to the Metroidvania genre (with a dash of roguelite). The way plants are utilized and evolve from cycle to cycle is very clever. The art style is awesome. Controls are very good. The game does get bogged down a bit in the endgame pursuits, in my opinion. Goals become a little bit vague and the quest to tie together the in game network got tedious for me. So, I (for now at least) lost interest in pursuing the ideal conclusion. But overall, this is a highly enjoyable entry to the genre that really does breathe some new life with interesting gameplay elements.

I had really high hopes for this one. I love a good Metroidvania game, and this does a lot well for the genre. Graphics and sound are beautiful. The story and lore are interesting. I was having a pretty good time for about 10 hours. At around this point, I found further traversal to become a major grind due to the frequency of lethal enemies with attacks that require a lot of patience to dodge. A few other observations: Leveling up does not feel impactful in the least. And the addition of new relics doesn't seem very meaningful either. The lack of detail on the map can be annoying at times. I am not sure why exactly, but I don't find the combat terribly engaging outside of boss fights-- maybe I just got worn out grinding through room after room. Is it bad? No. But for me, a fairly casual gamer for whom "Soulslike" is generally a turn off, it largely stopped being fun before I got to the finish line

Note: Played on PS5 in 2024, with Phantom Liberty. I am a gamer dad. I have limited time to play in any given day. As such, I expected CyberPunk to be too much game for me, or that I would get bored before completing it. But at the discounted price I paid, I figured I would get my money's worth. This ended up being ,quite possibly, my favorite action/RPG that I have ever played. As much as anything, CP2077 is super accessible for a gamer like me. One can play for 20 to 30 minutes at a time and still make progress-- knock out a few jobs or a story mission. Perfect for my situation. Fast travel points are ample if you don't always want to traverse Night City. The story and acting are tremendous. The world is as alive as any you will ever see in a game. Music is a perfect match. Action is fast paced and you can cater difficulty and play style to your maximum enjoyment. I finished the main game after a very completionist runthrough of about 106 hours (way more than I usually commit to a game) and I could easily start over with a different V and try the game with different decisions. (It could be completed in much less time if not concerned with all the side missions.) There are still some glitches, but nothing that hampered my enjoyment. This may not be a perfect RPG for everyone, but it was perfect for me and I am glad I finally gave it a shot. Highly recommended!

Planet of Lana is a beautiful, enjoyable puzzle game. The graphics are dazzling, the scoring is tremendous, and nearly everything about the presentation is perfect. The gameplay is basically "Limbo Light" in my opinion. The puzzles don't demand much of the player, but it does make for a somewhat breezier, less ominous experience. One aspect of the presentation I didn't care for is the relatively frequent fade to black that I think is used to cover some loading or other mechanical element. It breaks the immersion and seems like something most developers don't have to resort to when transitioning to an in-game cinematic type sequence. Very odd, but a relatively small quibble. Now-- about the shape of that spaceship...

This was a fantastic game, marred somewhat (PS5) by many very distracting bugs. Easy 5 star once the bugs are dealt with. Smooth controls. Amulets offer flexibility in how you want to power up Sargon and tailor the fight to your style to an extent. Combat and boss fights were enjoyable-- although I found the parry pretty unforgiving outside of the first few bosses. I experience several near game breaking bugs, though-- more than I have ever experienced in a major release, and that was didappointing.

This is a quality Metroidvania. Nice graphics and sound, engaging story, and interesting time travel element. It is a pretty casual playthrough-- not terribly difficult or overly long. But it made for good time. There are some who may find the occasional "wokeness" of some elements of the story and characters off-putting, as it is pretty overt at times. Overall, highly recommended, especially if you are a little burnt out with games that are pretty intense on the difficulty level.

As a Metroidvania game, Aeterna Noctis gets a lot right. Graphics are very good. There is a lot of solid voice-acting. There is even a welcome amount of humor sprinkled in to the games many character interactions, especially when the Chronicler is involved. Combat is okay. Controls are occasionally not as pinpoint as the game requires. In my opinion it gets bogged down by tedious platforming that ceases to be entertaining over the course of the game's lengthy run time- and this was on the more casual mode. I simply ran out of gas on this one.