Recent reviews by h.arle

Responsive, satisfying combat and a plethora of customization options carry Stellar Blade through some uninspired choices for its open-world and general questing -- would have been a better game with just its linear segments (and a few more chucked in to replace the current open-world maps), but that's a relatively minor blemish compared to its strengths.

An improvement over the base game in every way.

The best soulslike I've played so far that wasn't developed by From Software. Of note, to me, are: the great rendition of a Belle Époque inspired setting; the variety of weapons and weapons-customization you can do; the voice-acting, soundtrack, characters, and story.

If you're a fan of the genre, you owe it to yourself to give it a try.

Movement feels great, the OST is a bop, and the boss fights are exhilarating.

What seems to be a very promising dungeon crawler that is also, unfortunately, both a Gacha game and a shoddy port. Having said that, there's a lot to love about it and if you're a fan of the genre you should definitely at least give it a try (for a much better visual experience, change your in-game resolution by right-clicking the game, selecting properties, and typing the following line in the launch options section with your screen's resolution numbers in place of the #: -screen-width # -screen-height #). I'm only a few hours in but the story and gameplay elements have me invested, and so far it seems fairly F2P-friendly.

Cute, short puzzle-platformer that can be finished in one sitting (took me less than a couple of hours).

Roguelike Fire Emblem is how it's described and it does exactly what it says on the tin. Engaging, intuitive, with plenty of thought given to its UI/UX so that all your decisions are as informed as you want them to be and a brisk pace that has you spending well over 90% of your time in combat. Other points of note are its soundtrack and chunky sound effects, as well as the clever banter/writing in between some of the characters (although the story itself seems to be on the lighter side).

A must for any fan of Fire Emblem or SRPGs in general.

Charming, fun, straightforward and engaging. It's on the easier side of dungeon crawlers (both in terms of navigation/puzzles and combat), but was still a very enjoyable experience that took me around seventeen hours to see from start to finish.

Fantastic, class-based classic JRPG that should have way more eyes on it than it does. There are dozens of classes to pick from, giving you complete freedom to customize your party of four (with up to eight in reserve) as you see fit; if something seems to make sense as an objective or build, you can do it. The story is compelling and full of twists and turns, and there are hundreds of secrets and optional bosses to tackle along the way as you aim for completion—and when you get there, a robust NG+ system that lets you determine certain parameters that'll change how your second run through goes.

Shin Megami Tensei is so back! ATLUS once again makes me a FOOL for buying the base version of their game only to release the Royal/Imperial/Re-remake/VVengeance version X months later.

Big improvement over an already great game in a lot of ways (save anywhere, magatsuhi rails for quicker navigation, sped up auto battle and skill-using auto battle -- and most importantly, fixed the level scaling so that being slightly underleveled isn't necessarily a death sentence), with a second story to play through (much of it is very similar but there are a couple of entirely distinct regions, as well as entirely new endings) and a host of new well-designed demons to summon (and talk to at the new Demon Haunt). Looks great, some great battle and zone themes, fun bossfights, etc.

If you like the monster-collecting/press-turn combat/traditional turn-based combat where the enemies play by the same rulebook you do, you can't go wrong with this.