Recent reviews by Applethal

As much as I appreciate ATLUS porting Catherine to PC, I still feel that I have been scammed given that the much upgraded version landed on other platforms at just about a couple of weeks later.
Other than that, it's honestly worth its price. It is a nice port that takes benefit of all things that make playing video games on PC a top choice with its support for higher resolution, better controls and faster loading. Still, it sucks that we could've gotten the upgrade with its new quality of life features, or at least some form of netcode for multiplaying with friends.

If you like horror with a mixture of romance then this title is the right choice for you, it offers aprox. 40 hours of gameplay if you aim for 100% completion. If you want a legitimate way of playing this game on PC then go for it, it's a solid port... Or wait for Full body.

Dark souls 3 is a new entry that extends upon what we had in Dark souls 1 instead of majoring over the elements of the second game, heck it barely borrows anything from the latter, making it seem as if Dark souls 2 was more of a spin-off so to speak.

I liked how it brings up lots of quality of life features that act as a fix to many of the least desirable mechanics of the first games, you can now freely enter and exit covenants without suffering any consequences, stats-respec is now even easier and so is multiplaying, though I still wish it took some of the new gameplay elements from Dark souls 2, like the Bonfire Ascetic and power stancing. Overall it comes with new remixes to the gameplay which are highly appreciated, like the weapon arts and the FP bar.

It capitalizes more on the medieval aspects of the franchise's aesthetics, it offers lots of beautiful looking corners that make every new playthrough feel fresh and stunning. I like how it sometimes utilizes the environment to tell its many stories without any dialogues or whatsoever.

With the addition of new weapons, spells and armor skills..etc.. One has access to many potential builds with all the crazy combinations. I however disliked how Dark souls 3 dishes out the idea of having armor pieces with special buffs/debuffs, as it reduces the complexity by a dimension, as Dark souls 2 had more of these, which added a new flavour to character builds. I just wish if these returned to the new game, as it only offers 4 armor pieces only that come with a combat changes.

Speaking of which, with the new FP mechanic and new movesets, the combat jumps to even higher levels of fluidity. It is fast and smooth, and I loved that they made it so that pretty much 90% of the physical attacks can be parried, something which rewards skilled players.


I can't speak much about the soundtrack, some tracks were nice and memorable but these were just a small rarity. I feel as if the majority of the soundtrack want to deliver the feeling of being in a menacing environment rather than making me feel the flow of combat.

It comes with 2 more DLCs, one of which was too short and felt unworthy of its price while the other being super good that it knows how to deliver good content that pleases the Dark souls fans, I am talking here about the Ringed City DLC, which has a good story and a plethora of new areas and weapons to explore.

I highly recommend it, that's it, whether you are a newcomer or an old fan. It is worth the full price.

First time Inti sells something worth its price since years.

For a puzzle game, I wish it offered a tutorial and the ability to randomize songs. Speaking of which, the songs aren't in their full versions sadly, also, not every song sung by Mayu Mineda is there, so Stratosphere is to be stuck on youtube.
The RoRo AI is just there doing nothing, she has no dialogues. Would be nice if she was better drawn as her 3D model kinda feels dead. Other than that, the menus and visuals look neat. I wish Lola would act as an avatar that encourages the player and congratulates them.

I wish the leaderboards were easily navigable, these do not compare my scores with my friends' sadly.

Honestly quite addictive as a time killer, worth its price despite the bad marks I left. Most of its assets were reused, at least they didn't charge a high price for it.

To avoid bloating the text, refer to my review where I discuss the elements present in the Prequel.

Rosenkreuzstilette Fredenstachel takes all the craziness Rosenkreuzstilette had and does more remixing, not just from the classic Mega man games but also takes elements from Mega man X as well as add more enhancements. One such upgrade concerns the password system where every progression has its own code, unlike back when you would have to redo the entire Wily stages instead.


The level gimmicks are, of course, remanescent of many games from the Mega man franchise, heck even the plot is a remix of the series. I didn't honestly expect the weapons to be monochromatic, which is a cool attention to detail.
Visually it uses new techniques to look much more stunning. The soundtracks are even fiery than before, it makes you wish to have more of it, I don't recall disliking any of the tracks present in the game.
It also offers another campaign, just like the prequel, where you play as a zero character with a slightly balanced gameplay.

Sadly, this game has no subtitles to offer, unlike the previous entry, where dialogues had subtitles for those short moments. But, if that's something you can sleep on and if you really like some Mega man brainrotting, then go for it! it's short, just like the prequel but it knows how to target its audience!

MEGA SUGOIIIIIIIIIIIIII!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I came here for the Mega man tropes. As expected, it's a short Mega man game themed with Kemono Friends. I am sure people who are deep into the media might enjoy it more than I did since the developer threw some references here and there. It overall feels as if they aimed to make a classic Mega man game minus all the bad elements it had, like the password system and lack of checkpoints...etc..

Gameplaywise it feels like a modern Mega man game with some funny platforming mechanics that are not true to the original games like damage boosting through a ladder. The levels honestly feel like your average Mega man game in terms of difficulty. Still, on default settings, the game feels a bit more forgiving, I am super glad that this is an option and not enforced by the devs. One thing that I find lacking was how the game forces the "Energy balancer" mechanic from Mega man 6; if you pick up an energy crystal with your Mega buster, it picks an arbitrary weapon and fills its gauge. This does not hurt but you can't do much about it in the settings menu at least.

The custom weapons are great, none of which were overpowered, the game is somehow designed around the idea that you really don't need them, except for the third Wily stage.
The soundtrack is great, memorable and free as well! It is coupled with some nice 8-bit tunes that really mirror a typical Mega man soundtrack, matching the boss fights and the stages quite well.

Finally, there is a speedrun mode with a leaderboard to climb, I haven't tried it yet but it looks promising if you want an extra challenge.

I am surprised this game is free, I highly appreciate it. It's worth the time with everything it comes with. It is made for both Mega man and Kemono fans.

Rosenkreuzstilette is a dougin that was released back in 2007 and got its way unto steam with some extra free updates.

Everything you love and hate about Mega man is packed in Rosenkreuzstilette: The barebone password system, the tight platforming, the evil enemy placement, no weapon refilling mid the "wily" stages....etc...

Although it heavily takes inspiration from MM2, some of its elements and easter eggs stem from other games in and out of the franchise.

The game has gothic and anime aesthetics, which were really nicely implemented.

Its story telling and dialogues are not too spectacular but it capitalizes further on the gameplay rather than the former, I am glad that they chose to render these completely optional.

The controls are purposefully reminiscent of how clunky the sliding and jumping was in the classic MM games. Couple that with the devilish hard level design and you've got yourself a game for the masochists.

Speaking of level design, I disliked how some level gimmicks were present only in fewer screens sadly, making these levels a bit less fun in those terms.

The weapons were great, I ended up using every weapon in the game, which is a sign that shows how good their selection of weapon design was.

The difficulty of the bosses is non linear. After 16 hours, I can safely say that at least 3 bosses hard attacks that were impossibe/hard for me to consistently dodge.

The music is so great that I thought about acquiring the OST, it matches the atmosphere and feel of the levels.

I recommend this game at the full price honestly, I don't think it has replay value, but the gameplay can be extended with the second playable character. It has clunky implementations, though I believe this was all intended with a focus on delivering the original Mega man experience, so if you are a new comer, you might dislike it if you are unaware of these mechanics. This is however, funnily enough, a good starting point to get into the Mega man franchise. I give it a 10/10

Yet another piece of a emulation hidden behind a cute main menu, Dotemu once again delivers a bad port with introduced input lag that does not allow me to press on reaction, in a shmup game if I may add where bombing and bombing are crucial to your survival. Instead of getting the Sega saturn port, which ran at 60 fps and had more eye candy to enjoy, we received the mobile port on PC.
Other than that, you get TWINKLE STAR SPRITES, an old versus-shmup from the NEOGEO library, which despite its genre, does serve us some chunks of single player hours thanks to its replay value, which is even enhanced with the added online leaderboard. Each play session would cost you aprox. 15 minutes, provided you don't lose a life. Still, this arcade port does not come with the tutorial and turbo shooting, both of which were part of the arcade experience if you care about it.

Another core option that is badly implemented is the difficulty modifier. Even though this game is a port of the MVS version of the game, which had a difficulty modifier in its BIOS, the configurations will always lock it to normal mode.

And don't even get me started on the multiplayer experience, the already base input lag gets even laggier even in local multiplayer, making my multiplayer experience totally unplayable.

Still, I would highly recommend against this version of the game and instead forward you to the GOG version. This product suffers from lazy port shenanigans and comes with extra bugs that haven't been fixed as of yet. 4/10 This port sucks for a 10/10 game, I only bought it because I like shmups and wanted to get some nostalgia fuel, if you are a new player: just GOG it and pray that SNK considers reworking this with the efforts CodeMystics, as they are known for doing a good homework.

Writing a review for this game challenges my long time experience with modern JRPG game design, the expectations of a long time fan, and some of my subjective views. To deliver the best experience, I will focus more on the port rather than the actual game. I played my routes on the hard difficulty, but every thing that I mention will be genuine to all playstyles.

This is my first time playing a Shin Megami Tensei game, I was charmed by the story, the soundtrack and the references that are thrown here and there together with how the depth of its plot.

As a big fan of the Pokemon combat style, I felt like in home. This is however where I start to recite the first of my complaints: The game doesn't perform a good job at telling me everything about the combat, although the attacks have their elements, there is sadly no weakness cycle in this game, meaning that a unit may be ice element yet still have an ice weakness as well. The game allows you to analyze units, but some demons can not be analyzed. I am not going to further mention every little detail, but you could say that for the majority of my playthrough, I had to use a learn things by doing them, or in some occasions, a guide saved me the research time.
Because of its age, I expected some minor changes in this regard to aid the players against certain gameplay caveats, like the fusion mechanic. Although I am thankful for having the game let me choose the spells that I desire, unlike in the ps2 port, the 4th game had a system that allows you to peek into the fusion materials of a demon. This is one of the few things that I find questionable, tilting between accepting it for the sake of having a faithful copy of the old game, or desiring a modern upgrade, which was already available in their other products. The original port wouldn't let you for instance see your real level if you exceed 99, making it almost impossible for you to tell the threshold needed for you to control certain demons, which is yet another issue that the remaster does not fix.


The keyword "HD" in the title honestly felt like a cheap marketing tactic to attract the new players. I am no old fan, but I understand how dishonest and lazy this port was. Visually it looks great, but the devs' solution against the aspect ratio of the pre-rendered cutscenes felt rushed to me. I would like to stress out the compressed audio, which caught me by surprise and made me realize how the game does not deserve its full price tag. Still, it made me discover some good tracks, which is something that I am grateful to have. I did for certain enjoy the voice acting, which is new to this port, it felt real and genuine and each character had a great English voice.

One thing that was altered here was the AI's behavior. The original PS2 port had a wanky AI that made the already hard game even harder. The new AI feels friendlier, being less prone to abusing their exclusive skills.
I think the NG+ cycling could use some remastering, I was surprised to learn that upon heading to the next cycle, you pretty much lose everything and have to regain your demons and magatamas again. With the latter being the tedious part, I wish they would've let us at least keep the magatamas and demons and reset their levels.

While I was diving deeper in the game, I learned that it had a badly implemented packaging system. What you get with the game alone is the original game that first appeared in Japan, localized and "remastered". The game however had 2 other ports, one that features Dante and adds a new dungeon, and another which replaces Dante with Raido. These 2 were added instead as DLCs, content which by the way can't be toggled mid playthrough, with that said, you have to start a whole new playthrough and can't even have them together; something which feels unacceptable by today's standards. It is unknown to me if the new DLC maps suffer from this point as well.

As a final remark, if I would have to seek mods to balance my expectations, at least on the aesthetic level (i.e. compressed audio, 30 fps lock..etc..), then I can never recommend this product at the full price, this especially aligns with the last point that I made. Shin Megami Tensei III HD is something I can however recommend if you want to have a fresh start into the series, it needs patience at first, but it's rewarding regardless and it made me want to see more SMT games on steam. 5/10 get it on a sale.

Crash Bandicoot 4 is a top notch piece of product that gives the fans what they have always desired. I have some complaints that I sadly could not ignore.

Upon booting the game you will be greeted with the option to toggle between the classic system and a new modern system. Both of which only affect the lives system and have no influence on the core difficulty.

Graphically it looks beautiful and appealing, and the soundtrack does sound soothing for the old fans. It uses the colour palette in a way that is refreshing and nostalgic at the same time, and the music is so catchy that it captures the themes of the stages and stays memorable. You may see that both the visuals and the sounds aim to dive deeper towards the cartoonish spectrum of their art. The sole complain that I would like to talk about addresses the accessibility: At some point during the gameplay, a curious player would like to try the new inverted gimmick of some levels, the problem with these levels is that they enforce some unfriendly colours with some annoying lights. Not every level is concerned, but the game does not even warn you that players with epilepsy may be affected neither does the game offer a setting against these concerns, limiting your choices to usual PC graphical settings.


The story acts a nice extension to the general lore of the crash universe, it is well written. It had some twists which were surprising yet still leave some small holes regarding some plot dimensions. Throughout a normal playthrough, the game offers a gallery mode that can be revisited at any time which contains nice looking artworks that can be unlocked. Still, one thing that caught my attention is how some cutscenes were CGI that run at 30 fps, whilst the majority were pre-rendered.
Another caveat that I could notice is how inconsistent the translation was; I did play the German version and some lines were untranslated and left in english. I am capable of speaking both, but as far as localization is concerned, this should have been addressed.

The directors did acknowledge the meme concerning the difficulty of the game's platforming and did capitalize on perfectionism while also going far in this direction. If you are like me, chances are that you will have to deal with a big check list of collectibles that you will have to obtain, going as far as having a trophy for beating every stage with every objective without dying. The design of the levels is harsh and the difficulty spikes quite early, specifically by the time you reach the 3rd dimension. As much as completion is concerned, and in comparison to the older PS1 classics/remasters, the levels are lengthier and the boxes require some intelligence and deep perception to be found and reached.
The new inversion gimmick doubles the amount of effort that you have to spend towards the ultimate goal of finishing everything, it switches the routing in 180°. Digging a bit into the documentation reveals that the idea was introduced to toy with the muscle memory of the players. In all honesty, I was not affected by this purpose and I fail to perceive if it would do a great job on another person.
The completion aspect of this game only rewards you aesthetically. As you progress, you will obtain some skins, which in my opinion do a great job at pleasing the eyes, gallery elements, and a hidden ending.

Tutorial-wise, the documentation is serviceable and the controls are quite solid, still, I could help myself with the "hidden timing mechanics" only because I am an old fan, still, the level design does a good job at progressively teach you by communicating various hints as you go through each level. The rapid flow of the events and the necessity of completion (should you desire the hidden endings) does call for these techniques, no external resource is needed for you to learn these considering the low amount of buttons that you have at your disposal.


I loved how the game surprises you with the new playable characters, I did expect myself to be limited to only Crash/Coco, I liked how they added a new flavour to the gameplay wth their own mechanics and gimmicks.

The old skill system was removed in favour of the new mask powers, which were honestly a nice addition to the gameplay and the story. They do accommodate their respective stage portions and offer a new twist to the mechanics. The time slow mask however has no cooldown to its powers, with enough spams you can pretty much abuse it as long as you hold it.

Embedded with a leaderboard system, one can check out the records achieved by the players online through out all of the existing levels, though the time trials mode is accommodated by a ghost, I wish if it was possible to download the other online ghosts to have a benchmark basis.


This new entry of the Crash Bandicoot series serves more than what I did expect and is worth its retail price, I did spend aprox 15 hours to finish the story, as of yet I am half way done with the collectibles but I expect myself to finish it by the 50th hour. The additional modes are purposed for parties, they serve as a great way to introduce some fun. despite the lacking points that I have mentioned, the game is a nostalgia fuel, a 10 out of 10 for the old and new fans! I did enjoy every piece of it.
All in all, it does not mean that the game is for everyone. For a much healthier experience, I recommend playing it for fun, not for the completion. Old fans might be tempted into the latter and it's quite understandable, I myself fit in this statement and yet I was warned about the game prior to playing it, but the game's rewards are walled behind a hassle that is much more challenging than the previous entries.