Recent reviews by Rossiter23

A very charming platformer/brawler hybrid. Fun fact: I got this game because the main character, Vernal, looks a lot like one of my friend's characters, and the game ended up being REALLY good.

For starters, this game is a metroidvania at the end of the day. A lot of people criticize this game for its lack of direction, though it arguably provides as much direction as Metroid does. It does have a couple of rough spots in its progression (for example, one particularly hidden fan and switch in the Fungal Mines, that's required for progression), but overall it is very open and rather smooth - generally, following the threat level indicators on the islands would provide a solid progression line, save for some minor backtracking for collectibles.

The exploration and platforming for each island is quite nice, with most islands having varied gimmicks to help with platforming (The Arboretum has water pumps, Fungal Ruins has mushroom effects, and Mossy Isle has mechanical switches), and they freshen up the platforming. Vernal's moveset is surprising versatile, seemingly inspired by platform fighters. The versatility of her moveset allows some very fluid movement throughout the world, and also allows for minor sequence breaking, if you're into that. You can expand Vernal's moveset even more with certain memories, the collectible upgrades of this game, such as Charged Up Aerial, being a very potent way to gain height in the early game for sequence breaks.

The combat is very fluid and satisfying - if you've played any platform fighters or any Souls-likes, you will love Vernal Edge's combat. It takes elements from Dark Souls, prompting patience from the player and getting them to punish enemy attacks - though it may also be optimal to rush down some enemy types, and some upgrades facilitate this. After breaking an enemy's defenses, however, it becomes a fast-paced, combo-oriented style where your goal is to keep the enemy stunned with your attacks for as long as possible. It's very satisfying to pull off long combos after stunning an enemy. However, in my opinion, the game lacks enemy variety - a few additional enemy types in addition to what was there would probably make things even better, as you've already encountered every enemy type by the time the map begins opening up.

Overall, a very solid experience and a strong contender in the metroidvania market. 8.5 Big Swings out of 10.

This game's flaws are very apparent. A lot of bugs, including janky animations, enemies being able to move while on the ground, picking up weapons being unresponsive, and other such situations. As for gameplay itself, easily the most annoying part was the seemingly random slow-mo segments that sometimes happen when an enemy dies. They really break up the flow in a bad way, and while it would be understandable if this only happens when beating a boss or when the player dies, having it happen when seemingly random enemies die disturbs the game flow negatively. The enemies wearing super armor (makes them immune to basic punches) on stage 2 are also used pretty poorly, being badly introduced and often being spammed soon after. I couldn't push myself to continue after dying on stage 2.

I will say that the graphics are fairly decent to look at, even if the animations are jank. And I also appreciate the game's controller support. I am also intrigued by the unique stage gimmicks (that typically aren't present in a side-scrolling beat-em-up), even if they are a bit basic (i.e. trains in stage 2 temporarily blocking your view).

This game is a quite frankly wild combination of multiple 3D genres, including old-school FPS, platformer, and slight Metroidvania elements. It's a wildly ambitious Early Access title with a little under half its planned content currently. Despite that, it still has an impressive amount of content for its price.

You play as a young girl named Carol, who gets her stuffed animal named Bunbun stolen from her by an evil organization from her dreams simply known as the Corporation. As a result, she ventures into her dreams to get Bunbun back, while making new friends and enemies along the way. You get access to a huge arsenal of powerful weaponry, such as the Big Boomstick, the Buffalo-XL, and even a firework-launching bazooka. These weapons aid you in your quest to eliminate the Corporation.

Despite everything, the game tends to be really fun.

The gunplay is quite nice, and it's especially satisfying to blow up a bunch of weak enemies with the Bazooka or watch frankly overpowered weapons like the Laser Oscillator or the Airburst-MX just melt enemies who dare get in front of me. I do also appreciate the existence of Raggs. She is a shopkeeper that sells you weapons, gadgets, and outfits. Most of these weapons and gadgets are obtainable via chests found around the world, but people who missed these secrets can buy them from Ragg's shop (with a few exceptions such as La Duchesse). That being said, there are a few guns that are quite notably weak, such as the Flare Gun, the Poison Bow, and the Olympus, and several guns simply get outclassed by the default Laser Dryer, especially early-game weapons.

You also get Gadgets, which are unique items that the player can throw by spending Imagination. These range from basic grenade-like objects such as the Fruity Bomb, to more complex things like airstrikes and homing molotov cocktails. At the time of review, the current Gadget system is rather inconvenient to use, but the developer is going to implement a new, more engaging system that is cooldown-based rather than resource-based.

You also get a lot of mobility options that help you get around the world and dodge enemy attacks. Even without upgrades like the Pixie Dash, Carol has an insane amount of movement abilities that make the game quite engaging, such as a slide, a long jump, a dolphin dive, the ability to go prone, and several more mobility moves. They add to the game's combat and allow for more difficult scenarios.

Frankly, my biggest complaint is the game's platforming. Oftentimes platforming physics are slippery, leading to me sliding off of platforms that I clearly landed on. Secret areas are incredibly difficult due to this as well as the abundance of instant death. I have died more times to instant death than I have to actual enemy encounters. This isn't helped by the lack of drop shadows on anything, especially Carol herself. That alone would make the platforming a lot easier and more fun.

Ultimately, if you don't mind skipping the secret areas until you have all of the movement abilites, and you don't mind the common bug here and there due to the fact that this game is still in early access, I would recommend playing it.

Starbound is an open-world sandbox survival game set in the vast expanse of space. You can explore different planets and extract their minerals. The game has a heavy emphasis on story elements, and has a whole host of environments and creatures to explore. I started playing the unstable version before this, since the standard version has modding support, then played the standard version with a friend. And I'll just say this game reeks so much.

The early game is so incredibly slow, confusing, and uninteresting that before the time the game actually picks up, you're bored out of your mind and want to quit. There are also so many things that force you to wait that don't need to be time constrained, such as crafting and such.

The online multiplayer is also probably some of the worst I've ever experienced in a game ever. Upon joining the game, I get frequent lag spikes that make the game virtually unplayable for entire minutes at a time. This does not happen in similar games such as Terraria and Necesse. I also got booted from the game twice in five minutes.

It also doesn't help that Chucklefish used unpaid labor from minors as the foundation for this game, and apparently managed to brush it off with very few reprecussions.

Overall this game is an incredibly boring singleplayer experience and an unbearable multiplayer one. Do not buy this game. If you want a space survival game so bad, play No Man's Sky.

After playing this game for a while, I can say that this game is pretty impressive. It's a very fun top-down shooter, and it's incredibly satisfying to pull off long strings of combos and rack up lots of points. It also demands a lot of brainpower - you have to strategize how you're going to beat everyone, and more importantly - how to get the biggest combo. My biggest gripe with the game, however, is the sheer amount of RNG. Enemies walk in different directions, spawn with different weapons, are more alert to their environment... it makes the strategy part of the game a lot less fun.

Tanks: The Crusades is a game that not enough people talk about. This is a game that's easy to learn, but hard to master. The graphics may not be the most appealing to some people (especially the 3D ground effect), but for something that's free and developed by one person it's nothing too shabby. There are a lot of reasons that I recommend this game.

The gameplay is incredibly fun and satisfying, just like Wii Play Tanks, the game this game was based on. The general gameplay loop has you play through a collection, or "crusade" of levels with a limited number of lives. You can move, fire bullets that bounce around, and lay mines that explode and destroy certain blocks when enemies get close. There is also a shop available in some crusades that you can buy helpful items from with coins, which you get from destroying tanks. There is a whole host of enemy tanks that are out to destroy you, from tanks that fire fast-moving rockets, tanks that get angry when they see you, tanks that spawn other tanks, tanks that can snipe you from across the map, and even tanks that can turn invisible. This enemy variety keeps the game interesting even later on. Out of the official crusades, the Castle Crusade is my favorite, spanning ten epic battles with loads of tanks. In my opinion there are too many green sniper tanks in the Adventure Crusade, and the Beginner and Classic Crusades aren't really lookers. If you aren't a fan of the official crusades, you can also randomly generate a level to play. And if that's not enough for you, there may be something else for you...

This game is equipped with a simple yet powerful level editor which can be used to make your own levels, and the levels of this game were even made using the level editor. There is a large variety of blocks, hazards, and tanks you can populate your level with, and you can even set some items you start with in the level, change the level floor color, add lighting effects, and even set a time limit for your level. You can also make your own crusade with its own shop and levels. And if that wasn't enough for you, a recent update added a fully-fledged tank editor where you can create your own enemy tanks with their own stats, AI, bullets, and other behaviors such as laying mines, spawning tanks, transformations, and a last stand when all allies are dead. The developer has also confirmed that there will be future updates to the editor, such as allowing changing the stats of the player, a more advanced bullet creation system, and more, paving the way for even more creative level designs. There is no official way to share levels outside of the Discord server for the game and putting the files in there yourself yet, but the developer plans to add support for the Steam Workshop in the future.

As of the Steam release of the game, multiplayer for this game has become incredibly simple to set up. Just start a party, and invite your friends through Steam. In multiplayer, you can team up to beat crusades or randomly-generated levels, or you can duke it out in a versus match. People in your party can even upload levels or crusades to play. Connection isn't the greatest sometimes, and a couple weapons in Versus are notoriously overpowered (the Laser) but it's a blast either way.

All and all, this is an incredible package for no cost whatsoever. If you liked Wii Play Tanks, or just need some good high-intensity action, this game is for you.

This is probably one of the single most underrated games I have ever played. I loved nearly every aspect of this game so far. Let me explain.

The story of Copy Kitty begins with our feline main protagonist, Boki, receiving a gift for her birthday. She finds out that it is a military training program called FLUX, built by her uncle, Savant. It turns out to be a fully-fledged simulation, pulling her inside. Savant explains that he knew that Boki was dissatisfied with her ability to copy the powers of others, and that he wanted to help her see the full extent of her abilities by assembling this simulation and filling it to the brim with magical robotic creatures, called Constructs. She decides to start her training, having changed her mind about the present she received.

Pretty innocent story, but - is the gameplay any good? Short answer: yes. More specifically, running around and blasting enemies to bits with fantastical powers is exhilarating as hell. Boki has the ability to copy powers dropped by slain enemies in the form of orguis. There's only a small handful of basic powers in the game, like Force, Split, and Wave. However, it gets more interesting, because Boki can combine up to three of these basic powers to get more interesting and more powerful abilities. Some of these abilities can even wipe the entire screen clear of enemies! Furthermore, despite being incredibly weird and powerful, I do like that most of the abilities were designed in such a way that you can get an idea of what they do solely based on their components - for example, Unstable Concoction, a combination weapon composed of Force, Explode, and Quick, can home in on enemies, rapid-fire, and explode on contact. As for the Constructs themselves, they vary from basic to absolutely zany. The enemy variety in this game is absolutely incredible. There are over a dozen huge bosses to fight in Story Mode alone. And on top of that, to keep the gameplay experience fresh, enemies later in the game are replaced with Beta or even Gamma variants, changing their AI and abilities to make them stronger.

Later you may want to enter Endless mode, where the game's replayability factor begins. In Endless Mode, you face waves of enemies, with minibosses and bosses appearing every so often. You'll travel to a new area every ten waves, often featuring new gimmicks such as a bottomless floor, buzzsaws, and sandstorms. You can even see some new enemies exclusive to Endless Mode! It can get incredibly difficult later on, so be prepared! One thing I like about Endless Mode is that you don't have to start all the way over if you died - your score just gets reset. This makes unlocking things that require Endless Mode a lot easier, such as editor features.

Speaking of the level editor, it is INCREDIBLE. The editor is one of the most powerful I've seen in a game like this. You can customize the appearance of the level geometry, you can add background objects, you can change the sky pattern, and so much more. You can place the hundreds of enemies you find in the game, and even customize what they drop. Heck, they even give you the power to make your own custom enemies and bosses by modifying an existing enemy type! This editor is incredibly powerful, and is mostly well-designed.

One gripe I have with the gameplay, however, is Boki's movement. As someone who's played action platformers such as this in the past, not being able to move while shooting felt super awkward to me, and it got me hit more times than I'm comfortable admitting. Another thing some people might take issue with is the super intense visual effects. While I personally don't mind them, some people may find all the flashing lights and explosions incredibly disorienting and overwhelming.

I have yet to play Savant's story, or Hard Mode, so I will edit my review once I have done that.

My experience with this game has been mostly positive, and the fact that this game has such a small following baffles me. This is genuinely one of the most underrated games I've ever had the pleasure of playing. Please buy it and play it. Sometimes it goes on sale for like $5.