Recent reviews by Microsoft Word

As if it wasn't bad enough that folks who don't know ball review bombed an Early Access game because they buffed a previously trivial and unfinished boss, now a bunch of Gamer Gate freaks who think it's still 2015 are filling the review section with irrelevant garbage too. They love screaming about activists but notably never actually talk about video games.

So on the actual subject of video games; StS2 is very very good. I have never played StS1, but I have it on good authority that it's more of the good stuff from that game. It's a very well paced and rhythmed roguelite deck builder that, importantly, is extremely satisfying to break. The map system creates an immersive, random dungeon crawling loop that is hard to put down and that is very fun to return to over and over.

Also, there's multiplayer now, and it honestly works great. It has its own balance issues but I wouldn't call it disastrously easy or prohibitively difficult. All evidence indicates that the devs know the numbers intimately, and the multiplayer experience is satisfying and fun to coordinate with as a team.

If you want a good deckbuilder, or you played StS1 and really want more of that, just do yourself a favor and buy this. I actually can promise you that a large majority of the negative reviews are ignorant, uneducated, or unserious people crapping on devs' hard work over things they straightforwardly do not understand. Honestly, the attention this game gets speaks for itself; it's a lot of fun, and it gets better with each update so far.

It's possible that you are someone who doesn't particularly like skateboarding or associated sports games. You should give this game a try anyway. I just finished at time of writing and I feel a strong need to get my immediate thoughts down.

Skate Story is a short, sweet, emotional piece that very purposely contrasts its tone and visual style with it's gameplay. The setting and plot are weird, and the visual style is very abstract, which is a far cry from (but not a clash with) it's very grounded and semi-realistic skateboarding gameplay. You are the glass skater, and you have a contract with the Devil; eat Hell's 7 moons and your soul will be returned to you.

Skate Story's gameplay sequences consist of short "open world" segments where you have free rein of an environment to talk to NPCs, mess around with your board, and discover secrets. As you progress through these areas and the story, you'll be dropped into isolated and often very abstract challenge sections. Notably, Skate Story is more concerned with imparting an idea than it is breaking your controller. I don't believe completing the game requires any serious mastery of its systems. That said, as you become more and more skilled, flying through these sections with high momentum while building up trick combos becomes extremely satisfying, and eventually doing advanced tricks and grinding becomes just another movement tool, which feels fantastic.

All of this is punctuated by narration, conversations with the assorted and weird NPCs in the story, and (I'm not exaggerating here) some of the best use of dynamic, diegetic music I've ever personally experienced in a video game. The whole soundtrack by Blood Cultures is simultaneously working on the same House EDM project but has a huge amount of variety and emotional texture. This particularly shines in some of the boss fights, where the music created some unforgettable moments for me when combined with the smoothness of the gameplay.

More than the sum of its parts, however, Skate Story is primarily a treatise on rebellion. From the abstract urban decay of each Depth of the Underworld, to the clashes with its various and obstinate bureaucrats, to the very fact that you're a dude made of glass riding around on a skateboard; it's a video game dripping with the spirit of resistance, and an invigorating reminder that it persists even against the crush of ignorant oppressor's idea of "eternity". The subaltern little glass skater may bristle and shatter, but he always pulls himself back together eventually. He may even prove to you that's there's more to the very act of skateboarding than you once thought.

To call this game "a vibe" is somehow extremely accurate but also harshly reductive to what I think the folks working on it actually achieved here. For me, what's been done with Skate Story is what game design is all about. It's intentional, it's effective, it's self-aware, and every little part of it plays a role in the idea at hand. It also is 10 hours long at most, which means it doesn't dither around with your time or outstay it's welcome. Strong recommend.

One could say it needs no introduction, and yet...

I just finished Chapter 4 a few hours ago, and I'm currently struggling to metabolize the profundity of my feelings; and it is more feelings than thoughts. Toby Fox, despite being a perfect stranger, is very good at picking at emotional vulnerabilities that even *I* didn't know I had.

Deltarune naturally drew fits of laughter, tears, and excited yelling from me starting in Chapter 1, once I finally allowed myself to be drawn back into the world and to get invested in the characters, and to feel the implications of my actions. This was a pattern that only grew from chapter to chapter, building atop a foundation of genuinely fantastic, complex, and adorable characterization with a blend of Undertale's undeniable kindness and a sense of conflict, adventure, and spiritual indomitability that hails from more classically styled JRPGs. As someone who played as pacifist is possible, it was refreshing (and cool, in a very anime kind of way) for Deltarune to still give me some fun and coordinated boss fights, all while never compromising its core message of peace and companionship.

Fox is also still using video games as a medium for frying my brain. No spoilers, but Deltarune makes you devastatingly aware of your agency. Whether you be peaceful, violent, or a third much worse thing I've been made aware you can be, Deltarune treats your decisions with a lot of weight. The game reacts to you, after a fashion, with a great deal of gravity. It delivered a blend of catharsis and emotional frustration that's still alive in my mind. I find myself treasuring the moments I spent with the characters, facing their struggles alongside them, and still anxious over the problems I have yet to help them solve. Some of which I'm not sure that I really can. And this was while the game was making me question what my role in the story even *is*.

In short, Deltarune is great. It experiments with video game narrative in ways that little else does, much like it's predecessor, and tugs at the heart. If you like JRPGs, visual novels, narrative focused games, or you just played Undertale, it's difficult not to recommend it even as more chapters are yet on the horizon. Each one is a complete story unto itself, and are all worth playing, not to mention the volume of decisions, secrets, and interactions hidden throughout the game.

Now if you don't mind, I'm gonna go lie face down and maybe cry a little. Leave it to Toby Fox to make me look forward to 2026 if only to see what happens next.

Blue Prince is a wonderful and thoughtful game that adds dimension to its genres in a way that few have quite done before. You can slap labels like "puzzle" and "rogue-like" onto it quite easily, and it happily embodies them, but sets itself apart. The closest game I can think of is Outer Wilds, but Blue Prince even makes special use of its constraint of scope to differentiate itself even there.

You play as the nephew of the late, esteemed, and beloved baron of Mt. Holly. You are his heir, provided you can satisfy the final challenge he has left for you; reach the illusive room 46 of your new 45 room estate. As you explore the mansion, you choose from a pool of three rooms to be beyond each door you unlock, and must carefully ration keys (for unlocking randomly locked doors), money (for buying resources from certain rooms), and gems (for drafting more 'powerful' rooms) as you build northward towards the antechamber and your goal.

That's only a small vertical slice, though. What the game appears to lack, with a certain shallowness of mechanics, it makes up for with incredible profundity in its environment. There are undercurrents of history, subtle messaging and hinting taking place at every level of each room's design, from the paintings on the walls to subtle color schema on every day objects. This, combined with the fact that rooms often have intersecting functionality, or that hints or abilities of certain rooms are needed to solve puzzles in others creates a thralling rogue-like loop where you will find yourself pursuing many of the mansion's mysteries all at once, making runs if only to pull rooms to satisfy your newest obsession.

I'm writing this review very shortly after completing the "objective"; reaching room 46. I can say with relative confidence that I've only dug part way into the game's overall mysteries. Enmeshed with the mansion's many puzzles is a mysterious background of family political intrigue that I don't yet fully understand, not to mention many room-to-room puzzles I have yet to solve.

Permit me some literary indulgence. This sprawling mystery makes Blue Prince an exploration of legacy. The complicated and flawed legacies left behind by our parents, our siblings, our forefathers, and the legacies we write for ourselves each day. Your late uncle Herbert Sinclair, here, had his fair share of secrets, and they might not be savory; he, and Blue Prince, by extension, asks you to unravel those mysteries so that you might be worthy not to inherit that complex legacy, but to add to it. To transfigure it, and make it yours. We aren't defined by the life left behind for us, but rather by how we step into that life.

Anyway, I suspect I'll still be doing runs of Blue Prince for some time, looking for every last crumb of significance I can figure out how to dig up. If you're a fan of puzzle games or rogue-likes, consider playing it. The manner in which it adds to its own legacy, contorting and complicating its parent genres makes it one-of-a-kind, and extremely satisfying to solve on your own terms.

I have a lot of fun stacking up in this game with my friends who are much better than I am, but honestly? It's a wasting ecosystem designed to trick you into spending money on nothing, the lack of serious moderation means that system exploitation runs rampant (especially in the queues you *need* to play to unlock Premier mode, which makes the on-boarding lopsided and terrible), and most people that you'll match with are genuinely very annoying.

So you probably shouldn't play this game. It's really frustrating, takes a long time to get even "okay" at it for most people, and doesn't support or care about making the experience more tolerable for new players. The bottom line for Valve is getting already-seasoned players to spend money on cases and keys, and it shows at every level. I have a lot of fun because I enjoy playing tactical games with my friends, and I played some CS:GO, but if you're new to the genre, you should consider other options.

A very tightly paced horror experience that considers failure, agony, and our responsibilities to one another, and their unbearable weight. In terms of tone, it's David Lynch's Eraserhead by way of 2001: A Space Odyssey. Or maybe the other way around? I liked it, either way.

Mouthwashing is trippy, sad, and at times torturous (in more ways than one). It is wound very straightforwardly, forgoing a great deal of player freedom in events in favor of telling a purposeful narrative that deftly uses a lack of consistent chronology to feed you what details the game wants you aware of. Nonetheless, there are a ton of details baked into the setting and dialogue that are open to explore.

Have fun looking for purpose in the suffering. I hope it hurts.

I had wanted this game for some time, having a distinct impression from hearsay that it would be to my taste; that turned out to be a dramatic understatement.

Nine Sols is a loving but sharply honest homage to the Taoist cultural and intellectual movement in China, and is replete with mythological references that originated thereabouts. It re-imagines the story of the archer Hou Yi as a being from an advanced civilization, driven by vengeance and self-determination. There is a fair bit of brutality in Nine Sols, which the game is kind to warn you about very early on, but this brutality is tempered by an omnipresent message of kindness and peace that persists in spite of the game's pervading darkness and violence. I came here for the gameplay, but I was driven forward ever more by an investment in Yi's growth, and learning more about his relationships to his allies and enemies throughout.

About the gameplay; it's the good stuff. Often very challenging, but (mostly) fair feeling, save some of what I experienced as a late-game, sticky, grindy feeling as enemies become more complex. Rhythm, timing, and reaction is necessary, as being able to react to and parry enemy attacks with no less than three different counters is the price of admission to the combat as the game goes on. It produces a wonderful, frenetic-but-graceful flow as, sure enough, the player can learn to humiliate stronger and stronger enemies with skilled timing, sometimes feeling downright untouchable.

There is some tedium to the late game level design and enemy composition which I'd be remiss to deny, but it did little to detract from the satisfaction of playing the game. Add to that, there's not a major boss fight in this game that isn't a joy to fight and overcome, which makes some minor frustration more than worth powering through. I am told, for what it's worth, that the story mode in this game is a wonderful tool for players who, not being freaks like me, would like to have an easier and more relaxing experience, likely for the sake of the story.

Anyway, buy and play Nine Sols. It's like if you took many of the best elements of Hollow Knight and Sekiro and distilled them and blended them, and enmeshed them in a genuinely compelling, Tao-punk epic. Hard recommend.

Mankind is dead.
Blood is fuel.
Hell is full.
10/10

EDIT: Okay, I felt compelled to say something a bit more profound.

Ultrakill is probably my favorite single player shooter ever. It appeals to me specifically on every level, with a visual aesthetic that assaults you with a combination of body horror and sleek mechanical simplicity in a low-res package, incredibly fast and often incredibly difficult gameplay with a skill ceiling that's basically theoretical, and homemade music that absolutely rips.

Ultrakill blends old school shooter gameplay with Capcom-style action, of all things, resulting in a gameplay loop that relies not only on your reaction time and weapon-switching ability, but also your stamina and ability to think creatively. High ranks in style and time are required to access more of the game's hidden content, incentivizing a mastery of mechanics, including a series of powerful weapon combinations from rebounding powerful railgun blasts through an enemy several times, creating flying rotary saw traps with magnets, to surfing on time-displaced missiles.

Despite their feeling of intentionality, the effects of various weapons do not feel hemmed-in by arbitrary or internal logic; you are simply allowed to do an obscene amount of different things with your weapons, and their are few guardrails against weapon interaction beyond the sheer skill and timing necessary to make the most use of them. This, combined with merciless enemies, killer bosses, and sometimes downright evil level design, results in a fundamentally determinate experience where the player has the power to overcome anything given time and effort. The difficulty curve, while steep, is linear, while the skill ceiling is quadratic; an ever rising line, near the top of which are players who make this legitimately difficult game look like child's play as they absolutely style on bosses and enemy encounters.

All of this precludes any discussion of the game's stellar thematic direction, feeling like a cross between gritty 90's pulp and legitimate literary deconstruction. While offering an experience where one rips through hordes of demons and monsters inexorably, it also makes smart references to theology, philosophy, history, and mythology throughout. Ultrakill's story is an exploration of humanity, violence, faith, and obsession, with the darkly comedic caveat that V1, the player character, isn't really here for any of this. Its only purpose is murder, and personally I love that for it.

Anyway, please buy and play Ultrakill. It's an amazing game without even being finished, and the dev seems like a really cool guy too.

Fast and frenetic, with a challenging edge. Eternal adds new dimensions of gameplay to Doom 2016's formula. Quicker and generally more difficult than its predecessor, Eternal demands that you adapt to it to some extent, but still leaves a lot of room for players to find their own style. The tone of the game has changed from a modern look at old-school DOOM, Eternal shifts to an aggressively 90's love letter to first generation PC shooters, and to pulp writing. All together, the tone is lighter and more open to having fun with itself; which is saying something given 2016's already self-aware tone.

Only downsides (in my opinion) are 1.) That platforming and parkour sections, while they do keep moving from fight to fight more interesting, they get stale, and sometimes interfere with what could perhaps be clean, interconnected and interesting levels. 2.) Some enemies, (Marauders) while not prohibitively difficult, are not fun to fight. They only warrant a complaint because they are a regular fixture of the game's second half, and gum up the flow of several, otherwise enjoyable, well-paced fights.

Besides my very minor complaints, Eternal is an improvement on it's 2016 predecessor in nearly every way. It's fights border on masterfully balanced, creating a gnarly experience which lets the player set the pace, allowing you to build up deadly momentum and cut a satisfying swath through enemies. It is an un-apologetically nerdy love letter to its source material, with an excellent, old-school shooter feel.

Like a fusion of a cop drama, a college philosophy lecture, and a drug trip, Disco Elysium may be my favorite interactive story that I've experienced in the past decade. So much so, in fact, that I won't talk about it overmuch here. Instead, take my advice; Play Disco Elysium, and do it spoiler free. Throw caution to the wind, do drugs, solve a murder, change the political course of the world, punch a child, be nice to an old lady, hate yourself, but most of all, don't worry about it.

The writing is amazing, it's mechanically effective, and there's nothing else quite like it. Play Disco Elysium.