Recent reviews by Zawy

Balatro is a game that needs no explanation you all know it by now.

Gameplay wise i'll admit, i've never played a deckbuilder before, and balatro does an exceedingly good job at making the balance of roguelike elements and strategy in making the best hands possible to win, i've played this game to high heaven and there's so many builds you can do with the large variety of jokers, it just never seems to get old, i enjoyed absolutely everything about it, even the old stakes which i didn't like are now balanced and the whole game is just polished oh so well, my only gripe is the completionist++ is a bit stale and rng dependent, but that's the ONLY flaw the game has, and even then its not enough to remotely come close to ruining the game, that's just how fun this game is.

Graphics wise this game is clean and slick, its presentation is simple, distinct and the beauty of it comes from the minute details added within, such as everything having minor sway to it, the negative, polychrome, holographic and foil modifiers all making the graphics change, alongside the mesmerising background in play at all times just blends together and makes for an absolute treat in the visuals department.

Sound wise there's some very small issues, the sound gets abhorrent if you score absurdly high hands (im talking like e40+) could use some sound limiting or something, and the music gets a bit repetitive after a bit but at the same time, its very fitting for the game, its not meant to be distracting just music to relax to and is ambient so the gameplay takes hold instead, as it should, the sound effects for cards are notable too, simple, nothing overly flashy but i absolutely love when a game makes its assets as functional as they need to be, and they sure are.

Overall this is outright GOTY 2024 for me, it took a lot of us by storm and it deserves every single bit of its success, if you haven't played it, i've no idea what you're waiting for, this one is an absolute must.

Rockit! is a survival game based around steering a rocket unable to stop and surviving 10 seconds in every room.

Gameplay wise it works, its 100% obviously inspired by disc room and while not as smooth as its gameplay, its still fresh enough to feel of its own, the rooms progressively get harder and figuring out the route required to survive becomes an interesting game of its own, what the game lacks in control complexity, it makes up for in route complexity.

Graphics wise, they're functional, a little bit shovelware esque and some particle effects or other vfx works might've spruced the game up a bit, it doesn't do anything wrong but just isn't exactly brimming with style or flair, some color palette swaps for each column might've helped too, but still passable for sure.

Sound wise the music is literally stock music, not very good at all, shut it off and put my own stuff on, it just isn't suffice for a game like this, lacks intensity or anything to add to the game sadly.

Overall its a decent game, i enjoyed my time with it for sure, but production value wise there's room for improvement, but the core gameplay was done pretty well even if short and that's what counts, so i give it a thumbs up, even if its not a resounding one.

Bokura is an incredible game about perspective, if the witness was about the way you see things, this game is about the way others perceive things. (HUGE SPOILERS AHEAD, NEEDED FOR THE REVIEW.)


The gameplay is where this game breathes plenty of freshness, its a strictly co-op puzzle game, i played with a close friend of mine and we went in fully blind, only thing i knew of was its core gimmick, which is that at a certain point of the game, the visuals change completely, either to a happy wonderland full of animals mixed with bloody gore, or a broken down mechanical dystopia style setting, this leads to both players seeing the world very differently and describe what you see as you actively play is very very interesting, there's many gimmicks which play around the ideas of perspective from each player, and the best part in my opinion is when you realise that the actual physical obstacles you're seeing aren't the same anymore, it requires players to co-ordinate and think about what they're being told.

Another huge positive for the game is that there's story segments where you're required to mute your mic and listen to some story, then come back and share with the other person, it creates a clever split of story where you both need to remember details and feed it back to one another, there were only 2 of these segments but i thought they were super refreshing.

Visually the game isn't perfect, but i think that's the entire point, your view of the world isn't the correct one, nor is either of the two perspectives, they're flawed in their own ways and it very intentionally is trying to make you feel like the other person's view is better, if you stick through and do a second playthrough the game is aware of what you're trying to do, and does accommodate for this and while not much changes, seeing what the other person saw, huge amazement factor.

Sound wise is very fit for tone, with both the animal/machine styles having their own soundtracks, its nicely done, not overbearing so players can talk and enough to be noticable.

Story is something i normally never mention but that's where this game fails in my view, it tries too hard to shove a theme of separation from one another and never being able to meet again, and while the secret ending seems to imply the characters were happy to meet again, i dont feel the story was acted upon and made prominent enough, instead i was more invested in my real friend and our experience than the characters at all, i think if the game didn't try so hard to make a sad tone for the story and instead were more on the nose and less vague about elements, it'd be top tier.

Overall this game is extremely refreshing for what it is, if you find a friend to play it with, absolutely play it, a lot of people are complaining about bugged achievements but just do 3 playthroughs with the same person and you're set, from there form your own experience with one another and enjoy bokura!

as a wise biden once said: SODA!!!!

Crash 4 is a game with high highs and low lows, and now we're back in the traditional crash style of platforming it offers the best level design yet.

Gameplay wise there's a lot to talk about so ill split it into each collectable, the gems are the main collectable in each level 3 of them are tied to wumpa fruit collection and honestly most people i know either get 0 of them or all 3 and could just be 1 gem instead, this applies doubly so for the fact that if you're getting all crates you're likely to get that one by proxy but its fine anyways, all crates is fun on paper but they went overboard and started hiding crates in place the camera physically cannot see or pan to, using a guide for every level gets tedious and is a bit ♥♥♥♥♥♥, the same applies for the hidden gems, but the 3 deaths gem is pretty good.

The flashback tapes are very very good and the levels they unlock are BRIMMING with creativity, no cheap tricks and are reasonably hard and so i'd say they nailed these, then tied somewhat is the medals for all crates in each flashback which again is a nice challenge, they didn't hide these in stupid places so they're good fun.

The perfect relics are one of my favourite additions, deathless is not easy on each level and in autorunner sections missing a crate voids the challenge, it turns up the stakes in a way which is optional to the player but is still engaging if you go for it, love it.

The Nverted gems and levels are the dumbest crock of crap i've ever seen, if they genuinely think that classifies as new content and people are dumb enough to believe that idk what to say, should be cut from the game.

Finally the relics, plat times are actually tough and dev relics are easily my favourite addition, they now actually require development of a player to go from someone who can beat levels to mastery and understanding them, its an excellent difficulty curve and you can choose your goal, even if it does demand platinum relics for 100% which is rough you can come back after getting some golds and improve that way, the relics are nailed 100%.

As for the general game, the levels are fresh and very well made, the side character segments are sprinkled in nicely and aren't overdone but having to do the crash sections afterwards is a bit boring, the mask powerups are very creative and add a nice dynamic to the way you have to use them and your moveset to get through obstacles, the game is a bit buggy though found numerous amounts of bugs involving random clipping into walls, getting warped downwards to my death, clipping out of bounds once and breaking the entire level, could've used a bit more polish on that regard.

Graphically the game is stunning, all the character designs are nailed, everyone looks the part and the environments you traverse are just as beautiful, its intensive on the gpu for sure but it still runs great so they nailed this.

Sound wise the music didn't hit as strongly for me but it still has a fair share of good tracks, sound effects are responsive to elements in the game it works for what it is, but i don't think it has enough flair to stick out and the tracks sound a bit watered down and they don't particularly drive home the feeling of whatever level you're in, if the music were a bit more thematic i think i'd like it more.

Overall the game has high highs and low lows, but i will say im appreciative that toys for bob basically made a brand new crash game in the original format and its really damn fun, there's plenty to do and you can stop when you're content, so i'd say give it a go but stop when you feel you're burnt out or just don't want to play anymore :p

Maiden and spell is a directly touhou inspired shmup or bullet hell game and i think would serve as a great introduction to them for anyone not super into the genre.

The gameplay can be split into many parts, ill talk main story first, the game is 2 phases, swordplay where you and another character battle to hit one another using various attacks at your disposal, they're nice breaks from the main chunks of the game: magnuses, they're an attack which you have to endure while shooting the boss to end that particular attack, they start simple and progressively get harder as the game goes on, the patterns themselves are fine tuned for each difficulty and character and they work super super well for what they are, the main story is awesome, then we have the extra bosses, there's 2 of them and the first one is pretty good, they turn up the difficulty a notch so expect a spike here, but the second one suffers from the games inherent flaws, the first one is that the difficulty balancing is a lil weird at times, the hardest 2 attacks of this fight are the last and 3rd to last meaning its backloaded and you have to clear 10+ minutes of each magnus to get back to them.

The true magnuses are 1 magnus that's intended to be super hard to clear, they're extras but required for completion and imo they're the best part, they're creative attacks, and push your peak shmup skill to the brim while still being very fair, i can safely say these are awesome and creative, even if they are slightly imbalanced.

Another flaw the game shows is in its attack and movement system, some are simply hold and you're attacking this should be standard for all attacks, having to constantly mash a button to fire a rally of shots gets tiring real quick and there's no real merit to having it in the game, just let it be autofire. The other flaw is that when shooting you're slower, this is standard for shmups and i've no qualm with it, but when you stop firing, you don't instantly get set to normal speed, there's a small delay and it feels clunky at times, it needed to be a bit snappier.

The graphics and music ill lump into one section, they're all very functional and touhou esque, the story is cute and nothing extreme although i felt it didn't really tell a story but sort of just nodded to one, still fine nonetheless, the character designs are clean, and took an artstyle which was simple and functional, and the music is fit for each fight and environment/stage you're currently in.

Overall maiden & spell is a shmup built with clear intention and good creativity, the design is a little shaky at times, but none of its flaws are enough to hamper the experience and i think this is a very clean and enjoyable experience for anyone who either wants to work their way into shmups or as a veteran, see what it has to offer, and given that it goes on sale often, give it a go!

Apple slash is a super short adventure game, for what it usually goes on sale for though, it doesn't overstay its welcome.

Gameplay wise its almost mindless, you hold to slash and move to traverse the landscapes, it never really tells a story but slowly gives you hints and nods of where to go, the game isn't too big either so if you get lost it usually doesn't take long to find your way, the combat honestly you can just tank everything, hold slash and charge through, this applies to all areas and the only exception is the final boss and even then its really not hard at all, achievements wise there's some replay value with hitless and speedruns, so learning what things you can skip and just progress the main story is interesting i'd say too, the misc achievements let you explore a lil bit of the world, although it barely clocked over 1 hour with absolutely everything, so let me make it clear, this game is very very very short.

Graphics wise its pretty clean, the black, white and red work well but can lead to everything looking kind of the same so navigation wise it hurts a bit, but i still think its very stylistic.

Music wise, the main track i thought was quite mysterious and somber, fits well for something like a pikmin landscape, being lost in a new world and all its unknowns.

Something of note, the game has some minor dark moments which took me by surprise a bit, namely
Carther's son dying to the final boss, your brother dying if you head back to the starting area, and the fist punching the concert people to death for waking them up. i found it humorous and to me adds that tiny touch of character which otherwise might make me think the game isn't substancial enough to be paid for, and to some degree it feels conflicting, but i give it a pass and say if you want to have a chill adventure for 1 hour, here it is.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTQVW3KMkpE

lol, nope.

I wanna maker is a maker style game for i wanna be the guy fangames, akin to such of the likes as mario maker, but has a glaring issue that makes the game at its core awful to play.

The gameplay can be split into 2 sections, the campaign and user content, the campaign from the small section i played seemed really engaging, i think its well thought out, presented cleanly, and is accomodating for newer players as well as seasoned players, the user content i say this with entire sincerity is absolutely unplayable, level design is for developers who know what they're doing with the game, not random people who do not know the game, this results in almost every level, being subpar garbage, which wouldn't be so bad if the game didn't highly encourage you to dig and find random stuff such as with the roulettes and challenges, it really highlights the core concept of user made content without moderation or curation just simply isn't engaging enough to be enjoyable, in the sample of 25 or so levels i played, one crashed my game so if i had that at the end of a roulette or such, my hard work would be instantly null and void, its not like i could get past it, another one had a 10 minute waiting room for no reason, just generally nothing gives off the impression that the content made would ever be worth playing unless made by the very clearly competent devs.

The rest if im honest i don't see the point in covering, but out of respect for the developers, the graphics are stunning and polished to a fine art, high quality while still capturing the charm of the original iwbtg, and the music picks are a good mix being suitable for relaxing levels or intense ones too.

Overall a great reminder of why to me, any "maker" game will never be worth playing, even if you can pick out your own levels and don't have to play bad ones, the roulette styled ideas that are put into them highly incentivise it which i just simply cannot support or say is worth my time.