Recent reviews by Tippi

There is so much I could say about Terraria. It was the very first game I bought on Steam, back in 2012. It is the sole reason I care about the Steam yearly awards you can vote for, as I go out of my way to vote Terraria for the 'Labour of Love' award. It is a game that I've essentially played through once or twice a year for the past decade, and there's always something new to come back to. At this point, the game is so packed to the brim with content that even if it were to never receive another update, I feel I'd still be discovering things a decade from now. This is one of my favourite games I've ever played, and quite honestly the best value for money I've EVER gotten. It baffles me in the best possible way that this game is still selling as well as it is after all these years, and if this recommendation can sway even one more person to pick up this delightful experience, I am happy.

To be honest, I hate doing these kind of reviews because when I see "several hundred hours of playtime but doesn't recommend? Yeah okay buddy." But to be honest when looking back at my time with Balatro I think I would say it's not very fun. Addicting yes, but not fun.

I think the game suffers from several problems, mainly noticeable once you get off the ground of White Stake and start working at the harder difficulties. A lot of the synergies or combos you think will be very cool end up working in ways that are very anti-player, and it feels more often than not the game is actively rooting for you to fail.

I could probably list off a ton of examples as to little things that have annoyed me over the course of this game but I'll just throw out a few. There are way too many instances of Ankh duplicating a Joker that just does not apply twice. Sixth Sense, a Joker which gives a spectral card and destroys a 6 if you play it as your first hand. Another Joker like this is Vampire, with a scaling multiplicative effect by draining enhancements from cards. If you have two vampires, only one will gain the buff. Now it's easy to say "well that makes sense", and you're right, it does. But the problem I have is how often I find myself in many many situations with this game saying "Look, I get it. But that's not fun. It would've been cool if it had worked the other way."

I haven't even commented on the fact that there just simply aren't enough Jokers that actually scale with your build so what used to be a fun game at White Stake becomes a reset grind in the higher difficulties to get a run actually started most of the time, because there are just a lot of Jokers that are simply not good enough for all the imposed restrictions at a higher stage. Which is hilarious because the dev has added an achievement for completing a Gold Stake run with EVERY JOKER IN THE GAME.

Not every run in Balatro is winnable. Sometimes you are just destined to lose, and it feels like the game wants that for you. I don't feel that Balatro values my time, but I've admittedly come too far to not complete it now. Save yourself the frustration and try something else.

I recently added this game to my stream and it has made such a splash! (ha) Genuinely a really cool interactive experience for any stream, and the ability to add custom catches lends itself to infinite possibilities. I've found myself sitting at my desk thinking "Oh I must add that, that'd be cute" and before I knew it I've ended up with over 80 custom catches on top of the preexisting 100+ catches in the base game. I had a small issue with naming a catch using a special character but the dev was super responsive and very chill, and the problem was resolved within the hour. Great product, great team. Highly recommend.

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At the time of review, I also have 100 hours in the Game Pass version of this game, after which I decided to buy the game on Steam.

Cassette Beasts is a creature collecting game which naturally leads to the first question of: How does it compare to a game like Pokemon? In my opinion, Cassette Beasts does its own unique spin on the genre very well, and I'd argue as an avid shiny Pokemon hunter that the bootleg system implemented in this game is superior, which is where I'd really like to take this review as someone who is a big fan of having a huge grind to chip away it, this game really scratches the itch. There are 14 types in Cassette Beasts, and every creature can have a bootleg of any type, so for example a Traffikrab is normally a Plastic type, however you can find a bootleg Ice Traffikrab, or Fire, or Astral, you name it. Each creature has a section of its bestiary entry dedicated to showing which bootlegs you've acquired of the creature. On top of that, creatures can also fuse together with each other, and all 128 creatures can fuse with all 128 creatures (so yes, even itself!) to form over 16,000 possible fusions. Which are also recorded in the Bestiary. So yeah, if, like me, you're a lover of the grind, and a fan of this type of game at all, this game does an amazing job of giving you a lot to do.

Of course, if you're not a grinder that isn't to say the game isn't good, it's fantastic regardless, and absolutely worth your time. I just wanted to talk a little bit about the full completionist nature of the game as it may encourage some masochists like myself to pick it up.

Moonstone Island is a fantastic game that fuses elements from Pokemon and Slay the Spire to create a very addicting, satisfying and rewarding combat system in which you banish or tame spirits to use against other spirits, to clear dungeons, mines, and temples alike! When not engaging with the combat system in the game, there's plenty to offer in Moonstone Island, you can create and decorate your own house, socialise and become intimate with the island residents, akin to Stardew Valley. There is some lovely representation in the form of multiple non binary residents that you can get to know, everyone has pronouns! A lot of love went into the creation of this gem and it shows.

I don't particularly know what I can say about TUNIC that doesn't feel like an inherent spoiler of some sort. What I will say is simply this. TUNIC is a unique game that I don't think for a long time I will able to fairly compare to anything else I've ever played. It is by no means a perfect game, I do think there are some parts that I was a little irked by during my 100% completion but those moments are vastly and almost entirely overshadowed by the sheer joy and satisfaction I felt unravelling the game's many mysteries. 2022 has started off very strong for me with the games I've played and TUNIC is no exception. If you're curious AT ALL, play it!

Toodee and Topdee is honestly a weird game for me. Initially I played a large amount of this game through Remote Play but ended up buying the game myself to play it all through. I will say out of the gate that I think if you are a completionist like me, you probably will not enjoy this game as much and it will become quite frustrating at times.

There are definitely some noticeable issues I've experienced with the controls feeling incredibly slippery and not precise at times, which would be fine if the game wasn't constantly incentivising you to go fast due to each level having a collectable associated with speed. Other issues include incidents such as placing a block on the other side of a one block-wide gap rather than in the gap directly in front of me, or fire shooting through a solid metal block to kill me despite me needing to set the blocks up in such a way to complete the stage.

I took some issue with both sides of the platformer/puzzler hybrid and found that the difficulty of the platforming sections felt alarmingly inconsistent at times, and the puzzle side of things had me saying on multiple occasions: "That doesn't feel like it should be the solution, but it works I guess?" which made completing levels often rather unsatisfying. I particularly remember two instances throughout my playthrough where I was given the solution of it being a mechanic I was entirely unaware of, and just felt annoyed about it.

One positive thing I can definitely say is the soundtrack is very good. There were no tracks in particular I disliked, and I'd lean more towards saying I enjoyed most if not all of them during my completion of the game.

These things being said, the game got me to play it through to the end, and to 100% it. So I guess it does enough right for me to feel it was worth playing. I wish there was honestly a third option for recommending or not recommending for an in-between. I'd say if you want a cute game and don't care about full completion you will likely get some enjoyment out of Toodee and Topdee. But if you are a completionist, this one's for the masochists.

bad game i recommend

The Binding of Isaac is a game that constantly evolves as you play, and will consistently challenge you for hundreds of hours. Every now and then I am still learning about how certain items will interact with each other in a new and engaging way. Almost ten years since it's release, it still remains almost uncontested for a wide majority of people as a king of its genre, and with online co-op in the works, this game still has a long life ahead. Buy this game, get the DLC. If you like roguelikes at all, you will not regret it.