Recent reviews by TonyTheTGR

It does take a little adjusting from historic games; and understanding that this is a build-as-you-go thing which is apparently the new FG standard. As long as you understand that T8 is not a *replacement game* for T7, you'll be fine. T4-T7 really felt like one-upping itself and was intended as replacement titles, but T8 is very distinctive in many ways from it's predecessor.

I've never cried so much.

A very enjoyable, very replayable Metroid Roguelite. If you're of the SuperMet variety that *only* lives for Speed Boosting and Shinesparking, you may feel dismayed by that not being in the familiar vein of things; but for those into stuff like Zero Mission, and you want an experience that's varied-but-vaguely-familiar, Fight is good stuff.

I would recommend DnF Duel to *SOME* players. In particular, it's a great entry-level fighting game and a great DAD GAME to share with your kids to teach them fundamentals like spacing, footsies, combos, meter management, and whiff-punishing. Kinda like Footsies with AAA production values.

That said, if you're a seasoned fighting game player that's execution-heavy or looking for high drama in your encounters, or a lot of online/ranking matches, it's just not the time for that here. It'll work as a good warmup game or for times when you wanna get back to some fundamentals, but it won't be on your top tens.

After a solid decade of "expansion" of what Roguelikes/Roguelites are... what Balatro does is geniusly different on two levels.

First of all, most Roguelikes/Roguelites take a fundamentally skill-based genre of games - platformers, RPGs, action-adventure games... and then use randomness and modifiers to make them more luck-based. What Balatro does differently is taking a fundamentally luck-based game, Poker; and using randomness and modifiers to make it more skill-based, and it's a very satisfying twist on that end.

The second thing, is that while many Roguelikes/Roguelites *expand* upon what the genre intends to mean, Balatro instead distills is to the simplest, core values that make it work. Using your loot to modify things in the standard ruleset, in ways that may or may not synergize well with one another, and making you focus on one or two really core strategies. Then your tests - the Boss Blinds - are there to make sure if you're a one-trick pony that min-maxes one element of the game (for example, maxing a suit for flushes), you're probably gonna hit a wall against it (ie: that suit being debuffed and scoring nothing).

It really is a truly remarkable act of game design all around.

It's a nice, compelling Smashlike with the kind of workshop support that gives you the experience you wish you got with MultiVersus, and also REALLY tight/responsive controls.

Back in 1999, Street Fighter Alpha/Zero 3 committed an ENTIRE ISM to this game, only for less than five characters in it to actually use that system...

An absolute blast! Modern classic.

This game takes what you love about 20XX and cranks the intensity a lot. There's a lot of significance to timing/rhythm and deep level design/gameplay mechanics... bosses no longer share stages and the stages themselves are less "chunky" and more fully-designed with slight mechanical adjustments and more of the randomization of the game is in the augs and occasionally the enemy placement, but even THAT aspect is far from "random."

The artstyle is decidedly more retro/MMZ-ish and while it means smaller sprites sometimes, it's also way more consistent in zoom/delivery, and gives you a big view of the area you're working in. It's way more challenging than 20XX in many ways, but not in any way that feels unfair or unpolished. When I take "stupid damage," and I do quite a bit - it's only because I'm speeding the game to save cycles and getting careless!

OBVIOUSLY