Recent reviews by Emilio

Painfully underrated game, play Blue Fire people!

While there are some surface level Dark Souls inspirations, particularly in the way the currency and bonfires work.
The game is a platformer at heart with some smaller Zelda-type dungeons and some amazing Mario Sunshine fluddless levels called voids.

While the combat is there and it has a few boss fights.
It is not the main focus and is easy enough that it doesn't hinder the enjoyment, since combat is by far the weakest aspect of the game.

What makes Blue Fire an absolute joy is the platforming, oh my god the platforming is PEAK.
You have so much freedom in your movement, and if you're particularly clever you can find some really funny sequence breaks to get some movement abilities early.
The way I was playing the game certainly didn't feel intended, but it really did feel like I solved it in my own special way which was incredibly rewarding, more so than if it was 100% linear.

The free dlc after the main game was also just amazing in every way.
It has so many new voids; most of which are so much better than the main game, plus the best boss battle in the game by a long shot.

Blue Fire is an instant classic in my book.
Please play it people!!!

Vampyr is a bit of an amalgamation of different gameplay mechanics and ideas.

The way the weapons are found, how you upgrade them, down to the equipment menu is very souls inspired.
Same with the stamina bar and dodge gameplay and how every barrel and crate explodes when you touch it.
Yet despite that, it plays nothing like a soul game and instead like a slower, more methodical 7th gen action RPG.

You can feel brush strokes of Bioware and Obsidian game design all throughout.
The skill tree, the way the dialogue is handled, and also certain story beats couldn't make me stop thinking about classics such as Alpha Protocol, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 2, and even Mass Effect 1.

What sets Vampyr apart is how it marries the narrative and gameplay.
You, as the player, and Jonathan, as the character, both want to do the right thing by not killing innocent people.
The way the game goes about this is that you are starved of XP by not killing innocent people.
This in turn makes your journey and choice of abstaining from innocent blood feel impacted not just in the narrative but also the gameplay.

I think on paper this is brilliant, though in practice the implementation of this system can sometimes leave something to be desired.
In particular, the way high-level enemies simply take less damage while dealing more to you.
A low-level playthrough turns a lot of otherwise simple enemies into damage sponges that one-shot you.

The skill tree also has a problem of not every skill being made equally.
When starved of XP, you really have to be efficient with the little you have.
But if you do decide to kill and level to max, you start killing most enemies and bosses in just a few hits, making the skills even more pointless as they all instantly kill enemies at that point.
It is a system that punishes experimentation and excess equally.

An interesting way Vampyr handles NPCs is that almost every single NPC you meet can be killed by you, either for story reasons or for XP. To actually make you care for these characters, almost every single character actually has a side quest for you and a lot of backstory and dialogue, more so compared to the average NPC in other games.
Though at times, and especially when you meet bad characters or criminals that abuse or hurt other NPCs you interact with, you are never actually allowed to help them or stop these crimes from happening.
Either you take it upon yourself to kill these people or leave them be; much to the dismay of the community.
I wish it wasn't so black and white and let you resolve these conflicts in a more elegant way.

The story NPCs have better-defined arcs and satisfying resolutions to their conflicts, on the other hand, thankfully.
It's not a huge cast of story-important characters, but much like the NPCs you meet in the world, they have so much dialogue and backstory you barely even notice how few of them there actually are because you know so much about them.
I think the developers did a great job making the conflict and story feel deeply personal. Immaculate voice acting all around. The world design is just incredible. Loved the costume design of the characters, and the music paints a somber picture as much as the visuals do.

While I won't say I enjoyed every single part of the game, I ultimately enjoyed it as a whole package and do not regret the time I spent in this wonderfully macabre world.
For the very low price this game goes on sale for, you really cannot go wrong with Vampyr.
It's completely worth it in my humble opinion!

It's ironic; looking back to my youth, I remember We <3 Katamari a lot more than Katamari Damacy.
Playing it now, oh man, it felt as if no time had passed at all and I initially had a blast.

Having said that, I ended up not liking it as much now as an adult, after I finished both of the reroll remasters.
There really is nothing wrong with this remaster, but there is just something about this one that made it a lot less of a game compared to Katamari Damacy.
It retreads a lot of concepts from Damacy, however half the levels are experimental instead of traditional, and honestly, I don't think the gimmick stages are that amazing, and some of them are outright annoying.
There are some weird issues too, like the draw distance is very low, and you can't see very far ahead at any point; the water textures are also all messed up.

There is not much of a story in this one, and it is structured as a "best of."
Ultimately, it feels like a glorified expansion.
Worst part of the game is the Royal Reverie extra mode. I think the remixed stages are sloppily put together, and none of them were fun. Definitely brings the game down with its inclusion.

All in all, if you love Katamari, then you'll like this game too, but I would recommend any newcomer to experience Katamari Damacy first and foremost.

Alt-Frequencies presents an interesting thought exercise about time loops, though the narration and story focus more on themes of anti-establishment then anything else.

This divide in narrative between these opposing stories doesn't overlap smoothly, resulting in an underdeveloped time loop story, a government you barely get to know and an underground rebel movement with surface-level ideals that are never expanded upon.

This ultimately culminates into an overall lukewarm story that is over before it even begins.

As far as the game goes, it feels like a mobile game with minimalist menus and large buttons. That is to say, it's very simplistic but also surprisingly limited.

If it is on sale and you think the story sounds interesting, you could do much worse. But you could do a lot better, too.

On a serious note the game is very linear and a product of its time.
There is a lack of enemy variety as there is only about 6 enemy types, 4 if you don't count the robots who only have 1 attack each.
You're just kinda thrust into the middle of the action which makes sense since your character is also suffering amnesia and is getting adjusted to the world alongside the player.
But despite that, apart from reading some lore bits in the collectables you don't really get a get to learn about the world in a meaningful way.

If you like 7th gen action adventure titles this is more of the same for better or worse.

Fixfox is a curious case.
On one hand, I really respect the developers pacifist views and that they made a game where non-violence is both a central theme but also not preachy.
I also think the concept of going around and repairing things with random objects is a cute DIY vibe that resonated with me.

That said, I can't in good faith recommend it because of annoyances in the actual gameplay department.

At first, the game is pretty inoffensive and has you travel around on a bike, collecting items in stashes, trading items, and repairing machines. The story starts off very simple, and your only objective is getting off the planet.
The country vibe of the first area and simple goal instantly hooked me, and it was so fun at first.
However, as I progressed to area 2 I was largely doing the same thing in the same order; then area 3 was more of the same... oh no.
It's at this point you, as the player, realize that the game has a fetch quest structure it will repeat ad nauseam until the very end of the game.

Just about every gameplay mechanic gets redundant by another gameplay mechanic later on. Plus, it's also shockingly bad that about halfway through the game, it suddenly makes the gameplay loop even worse.

Why have the pirates and the order steal your items at random intervals when you give the player anti-stealing items in such abundance, only to then make them stop stealing altogether?
Why are there two fast travel systems in the game, and why is the worse of the two given away after the better one?

Even if it's for story reasons, giving the player infinite stamina only to suddenly take this away and make your character fall to their knees every six seconds to cough for a few seconds every single sprint makes for a terrible gameplay experience. And when the repairing is the bulk of the actual puzzles, you just give us a button to auto-complete every repair halfway through the game!?

It felt as if even the developer was getting annoyed playtesting the end, so they just made it as easy as possible to speedrun later portions.

Now on to the actual story. It's okay; it has its moments near the start and the end, but the tedium of the middle muddles the story as much as it does the gameplay. I also think the whole animal people furry subplot, while obviously being a way to introduce themes of racism without pointing out any specific minority, feels a bit ham-fisted to be as furry-centric as possible. I get that the developer probably is a furry, but the way it is inserted into the story subtracts from the experience, as it's hard to take it seriously, in my opinion.

I ultimately enjoyed the ending portion and think the developer had some cool ideas that, while not fully realized, could potentially be expanded upon in interesting ways with the experience they gained making this one.

Overall, to sum it up, I didn't hate the game as much as the review might make it sound.
But I think the myriad of issues makes it a hard recommend from my part.
For what it's worth, I will applaud the developer for sticking to their principles and making an original game.

Genuinely an insanely well put together short demo that 100% sold me on the game as a whole.
The exploration is so well done and I had such a blast jumping around, finding shortcuts and making my own way through the city.

The amount of player expression in the movement and traversal in particular starts hitting immersive sim levels of being able to do just about anything you imagine possible.

It's free, fairly short and well worth your time to try!
Can not recommend it enough if you think for even a moment that it looks interesting.

Vernal Edge is a bit of a mixed bag though I still recommend it for a casual playthrough.
It has a lot of issue at it's core but what it does right is fun enough.

I'll start with my issues with the game.
The story feels like it's already 50% into the adventure and you're just thrust into it with little time to get to know the world, you eventually do start learning about the backstory of the main characters but even after beating it I still felt like I just wasn't invested in the world cause so much of the context was missing.

To add on to this issue apart from the main villian and 2 main characters everyone else felt like a random assortment of OC's sprinkled about.
Lo and behold I reach the credit and it does turn out a substantial amount of the characters where kickstarter backer characters.
These characters look out of place to say the least, demons, furries and just about everything else.
It makes the world not feel like a real place and shatters the immersion that this is a coherent world.

The combat while fun has a similar issue Guacamelee has where you do very little damage and while the act of doing combos can lead to some cool moments; you often just end up juggling guys around that can barely defend themselves and the fight drag on too long because of it.
I also can't deny the enemy variation was very poor, only having roughly 7-9 normal enemies that you fight from start to end.
The spells are also very poorly balanced and 99% of spells are essentially useless.
You'll be using timebomb exclusively once you get it early on. (I guarantee it)
And to top it off the game isn't even one of the hardest I have played, but every boss fight is a super steep difficulty spike (especially the final ones) that is always way harder then anything before or after the boss fight.

Now I know that's a lot of negatives but I ultimately do enjoy the game despite these flaws and once you get a few upgrades going the movement and platforming is fun and the puzzles where okay. I really liked the "non-linear" nature of the exploration even if it is painfully obvious it's just an illusion and there is a very specific path you should follow even if you can deviate a tiny bit.
My favorite part of the game has to be the music, especially the boss music.
Holy.... the music in this game is fantastic and I so wish the devs put it on streaming services.

Overall it's an okay game in it's own right and while it never does better then games it was inspired by I still think it can be worth a try if you get it on sale.

Edit: Vicious difficulty, more like unfair difficulty. Enemies don't take more hits and don't deal more damage. But they spam a million of the toughest enemies making the start of the game super difficult and then it just becomes easier.
Ironically the bosses are way easier in comparison. Bad difficulty setting.

It's a very short game and apart from maybe 1 or 2 brain teasers is a fairly straight forward experience from start to finish.
Absolutely perfect for the steam deck, honestly if you need a platformer for the deck this is one of your best bets hands down. The short game time and the ability to save and quit whenever makes short play sessions more then perfect.

The graphics is very on point, models look fantastic and perfectly implements 2D sprites when appropriate.
The look and design of the worlds never feel out of place and the collectibles are always placed in sensible locations and the secrets are well telegraphed so I never had an issue finding everything.

The music is phenomenal and perfectly evokes the feeling of a dreamlike state and subsequently terror and nightmares.

The game feel and gameplay plays exactly as you expect them to feel that is to say a little more responsive then your average N64 title but still old school in a pleasant way.

Honestly my biggest issue with the game is that the power ups feel a little inconsequential and one of them I never really used outside the 4 or so puzzles that actually required it.
I wish the powerups where either unlocked from the start or had more of an impact.

Overall it's a very comfy game that does exactly what it sets out to do and I can not recommend it enough if you're into 3D platformers and collectathons.

Visually Chernobylite looks stunning and is probably the most impressive looking double AA game I have played.
And as one of the few people that played GET EVEN, this was also such an awesome soft sequel back into that universe.

The story much like their previous game is also fantastic and tells such varied human stories from different perspectives and characters that all have their issues that makes them relatable though not always agreeable.
I really had a hard time not just playing one more mission to get to know these characters more.

The music while very depressing in nature has some really outstanding and beautiful tracks that nearly bring a tear to my eye. As well as some really cool and catchy action combat songs.
A surprisingly good soundtrack quite simply.

From a gameplay perspective there is a lot that shines here.
First and foremost the base building is really fun and feels impactful on your gameplay and progression.
But at no point did it feel overwhelming or grindy on hard difficulty.
It reminded me a lot of Subnautica and it's very smooth progression curve of crafting/grinding resources to exploring ratio.

The shooting also felt good though the mediocre enemy AI does turn end game encounters to all feel the same, as they just kinda throw themselves at you without much ability to retaliate.
It feels the best in the early to mid game when you really have to ration your ammo.
You can craft various traps on the field which also helps break up the shooting, not that it's too difficult to outsmart the enemies.

The various maps are fairly small and it's not that difficult or time consuming to gathering resources.
The missions are also not that complex either, but it makes every journey into the zone fairly bite size when you only have time for smaller sessions.

However I have to mention the faithful recreation of Pripyat is just so hauntingly appealing to explore as you slowly make your way through the desolate ruins, seeing all the color in the paintings, stained glass and murals aswell as the oppressive soviet brutalist architecture.
Just a brilliant fully realized world that perfects it's ambitions more so then I have seen in other comparable games.


Overall you can definitely feel that this is a lower budget game with a much smaller scope, but that doesn't stop it from performing well above that budget for a very enjoyable experience from start to finish.
Well worth it to me.