Recent reviews by Reginald "Reg" Ogron

I am seriously pissed that this somehow slipped through the cracks and I didn't play it when it fully released last year. I'd had my eye on it for a while.

This game is epic. It is everything a Roguelike should be; it gives you the tools to create insane game-breaking builds, it's fast-paced and fun, the enemy variety is enough that it doesn't feel repetitive but not so overwhelming that you can't remember what each enemy does, and it has a wacky set of memorable characters and a hilarious sense of humor. Please add DLC where I can play as Pump Quinn. I will give you all my money and worldly possessions.

Unfortunately, this game commits a roguelike cardinal sin by just being too darned short. It's clearly trying to do a Hades-style thing where every run you go through unlocks new dialogue and there's little narrative quests you can do by talking to people in order, but the dialogue gets exhausted pretty fast and some of the quests are bugged and straight up never initiate (I think). The thing that makes Hades so unique is that you can play it for dozens upon dozens of hours and still feel like you haven't found every conversation, which this game ends up failing to do even if the conversations it has are really funny and charming.

It also expects you to play it a LOT. There are fifteen difficulty levels that can only be unlocked in ascending order by beating the game on the previous one, which is clearly meant to be the endgame "god gamer" achievement challenge that all roguelikes should have. Ok, nothing wrong with that. But there's definitely not enough content in the game to sustain playing for that long without it getting at least a little stale, even if the moment-to-moment stuff is still really fun.

Overall, this is a perfect 30-hour-or-so Roguelike, a great 60-hour Roguelike and an ok 150-hour Roguelike. I still loved playing it and definitely expect to have fun doing the endgame stuff (unless it's bugged, in which case I'm outta here), but it's not going to give you Binding of Isaac levels of replayability.

Get tha-get that damage UP IN THERE! GET THAT DAMAGE UP IN THERE! GET THAT DAMAGE! I'M NOT DOIN' ANY DAMAGE!!!

What diabolical walking foetid pile of human effluvia thought that making a Metroidvania that's deliberately hard to control AND to navigate would be fun? Because the second that the novelty of playing as a giant meatball wears off, that's all this game is; trudging through tiny openings trying to figure out where to go while the creeping suspicion that you're missing side content somewhere grows in the back of your head. One of the very few games I gave up on and did not play through to the end, and a shining example of everything that is wrong with Metroidvanias as a genre and design concept. Avoid this one like the plague unless you hate yourself and don't value your time.

Better than the first in every way except that it's too damn short and lacks some of that atmospheric punch the first had. It needed one or two more open-ended levels with unique gimmicks where you have to evade danger constantly and very few areas are safe (think various segments in Chapter 3 of "Ink Machine"), as it is otherwise a very linear game with very little in the way of exploration or that crunchy, Bioshock-y immersive sim goodness. In spite of that, it's still piss-your-pants scary and knows exactly how to build off of the original game's atmosphere, and the story actually makes sense and isn't Game Theory bait (no offense to Game Theory intended). Definitely a short but sweet experience, so consider waiting for a sale to buy it as you otherwise may feel like you haven't quite gotten your money's worth.

Literally one of the best horror games I have ever played, maybe some of the best horror media I have ever experienced in my entire life when it's not being a buggy piece of garbage

An extremely charming and fun little game with a super unique aesthetic, simple but deceptively deep and satisfying gameplay, gorgeous atmosphere and a cool story and world if you can look past the jank. The game feels really poorly optimized and like a lot of animations or visual feedback are missing, and the occasional audio/visual glitch indicates that this game is being held together with duct tape and twine. Despite that, it's clear that the developers are working tirelessly to not only fix everything that needs fixing but also add more content, and this is definitely a small but passionate team who have put a lot of work into making this title feel unique. Now if only I had any friends to actually play it with...

The only game my non-gamer mom could successfully play through (with my help).

Made me fundamentally change how I think about things like emotions in storytelling, getting attached to fictional characters, how music is used to accompany fiction, etc. If that sounds pretentious, ♥♥♥♥ you. This game GETS to be pretentious, ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. "They're just pixels on a screen, why are you crying?" Maybe if you actually played through the game a couple times, you'd figure it out, you thimble-headed gherkin.

Easily one of the greatest RPGs, if not THE greatest RPG of all time. Although I'm confident that when Deltarune is released in full it will somehow do the impossible and manage to dethrone this game from that title.

Toby Fox, you're an inspiration, an icon and your work has impacted me as a creative and as a person more than you'll ever know. Thank you and please keep making great games for us to play for years to come.

This game makes me wish I had poker buddies I could hang out with in real life, and that I could tangibly play Poker Night 2. If only Tycho weren't such a little ♥♥♥♥♥ and would actually bet money so I don't always wind up fighting him last, but what are you going to do.

One of the only Metroidvanias that has a story, world and gameplay good enough to overcome the fact that Metroidvanias are objectively bad game design. I did not go into this expecting to 100 percent it like how I didn't with the first one, but something about it clicked even more with me. Maybe it's the somewhat stiff but powerful and satisfying combat which has a greater deal of depth than the first thanks to the three weapons. Maybe it's the once-again phenomenal pixel art. Maybe it's the fact that you can gain the ability to warp between Prie Dieu Altars by doing half of a side quest instead of having to pay 1 TRILLION CVSTODIABUX. I'm not sure.

If the stinger at the end somehow doesn't wind up with them rounding this series out as a fantastic trilogy (or at the very least offering DLC or new content like the first game's post-launch updates), I'm going to flagellate myself until the Grievous Miracle turns me into a 25 foot tall anthropomorphic ballsack or something.

If only Yuri, with her amazonian physique and her love of both literature and ornate knives, were real. But alas, that reality is not the one I live in.