Recent reviews by Malice

Where are the 177 countries that were left in the dark?
I'm holding out until Sony fixes that.
People in 177 different countries can't play the game they bought.
WE ALL DIVE TOGETHER.
DEMOCRACY. SUPER EARTH.

This is a game by Cheesecake Dev, so if you're familiar with Internet Cafe Simulator 1 & 2, Border Officer, and Streamer Life Simulator, then you should already know what to expect. The Time of Day is no longer a factor it seems. Your character will just get tired after some time, forcing you to seek your bed after you start nodding off twice, or else you'll fall asleep in the streets and lose some cash, even if you technically fell asleep right next to your bed after having paid the due for the evening.
This is not a realistic simulation of computer repair. All components including the PSU, the CPU, and the Mobo, can all be repaired easily using the repair station, which scans these object for bad sectors as if magic. You don't NEED to purchase and replace every broken part of any machine, you can just use the repair station and that will fix it. There is an in-game guide that will tell you which symptoms equal which corresponding component is acting up, which also is not related to how you would determine these issues in real life. Some issues aren't even mentioned, leaving you frustrated and having to abandon a client or mess it up. Cheesecake Dev is also a HUGE Huge huge fan of adding idiot punk/thief NPCs that will wander into your shop and steal your clients' PCs. This is honestly the biggest disappointment in this game over everything else. Many times, a client will say they want to be able to play a specific game, but I have no idea how we are supposed to know what we are to do with that information. There is no way to play any of the games, nor is there any way to view the made up system requirements for said games, so I don't know if we're to overclock their PCs or install new parts. And then the graphics settings so simplistic they are practically non-existent. You can select low medium or high, and honestly I just want to turn off motion blur.
Aside from the video settings, and the thieves, this at least has a satisfying gameplay loop and has kept me entertained.

If you are familiar with Cheesecake Dev's other games, and are fine with the game being quite a bit unrealistic for a "Simulator" game, I'd recommend it. The price isn't bad either.

If you haven't played any of this dev's other games, or you're looking for something more realistic, I would recommend you check out PC Building Simulator. https://store.steampowered.com/app/621060/PC_Building_Simulator/

Needs work. Bought this on xbox originally but then I finally got a new SSD, so I bought it on Steam for mouse + keyboard.

This was good 10 years ago. Yes, Lab Zero turned into hot garbage eventually, but at least you got what you paid for. I feel sorry for the kickstarter or Indiegogo backers who now have a diminished product compared to the original release, or at the very least from 4 months ago. This new company, Hidden Variable Studios, should just release a whole new game instead fixing what isn't broken. They censored the game 10 years after the fact, and now they are censoring reviews. IMO, Skullgirls fans should be as upset as Elder Scrolls fans were when Bethesda started selling mods, or Crash Bandicoot fans when Activision added predatory microtransactions into a Crash Bandicoot racing game right after all the reviews from games journalists went out. This is scummy.

This has been an interesting take on the Kingdom formula. Let's get the elephant out of the way first: There is no co-op in this game. This was announced over a year ago, so this wasn't a surprise, just a slight bummer after Kingdom Two Crowns. At the time of that announcement, they mentioned the co-op was not included due to how they want to have the game's story play out.

So there is a story in this game. Previous games in the Kingdom series were similar to a "rogue-lite" although without really having many of the mechanics of typical rogue-lites. Previously, you had islands you visited, structures you built and the lay of the land could stick around after lengths of time pass while your character is away from the island or dead, and getting killed would send you back to the first of 5 islands, devoid of a story. Kingdom Eighties is not like the older Kingdom games.

Kingdom Eighties takes on a 1980's theme, full of references to many 80 movies and pop culture. Instead of the usual 5 islands that would act as a form of progression, hiding secrets that will require you to return to those islands later on via a boat, this island game mechanic has also not returned with the latest game. Instead, you play through 4 levels with linear gameplay (go to A, go to B, collect C, upgrade D, destroy E, etc...) with cutscenes placed in specific locations activated by spending a single coin. The story is sort of a classic 80's movie theme of some "strange things" happening in town, four friends get together, save the town and their parents. It's cheesy like the 80's, but that is the point. This is supposed to be a reason you're buying the game, so keep in mind that if you dislike 1980's style story and references, you're not going to like this game.

There are "chores" that your builders can do in order to earn you extra coins if you're running low. These will require an available builder to do. If you have something you need to build and all of your builders are busy doing chores, they will stop doing chores to do other duties. "Archer Towers" are now unmanned, Squires still exist, pikemen do not. There are a lot of differences between this game and the previous games, definitely proving why this could not have simply been a downloadable skin/theme for Two Crowns. Many of the levels even have "vagrant camps" in the form of indestructible buildings that you can't destroy by accident this time. My extended playtime for my playthrough was due to mistakenly destroying the trees bordering the only actual "vagrant camps" in the final level. I was prepared for this earlier, but since indestructible camps appeared in the first few levels, I wasn't expecting it to return on the final level. If you do destroy your "vagrant camps" (okay, we all call them vagrant camps, but they are just all children you are hiring, I'm not gonna admit to child labor here) you can build a house in place of the camp, but it will cost 5 coins per vagrant instead of 1 coin. This is sill better than the alternative, you know this if you've played the previous games.

Due to the mistake I made, it took me about 6 hours instead of the typical 4-5 hours that it sounds to be taking other players to complete the campaign. I also didn't know until after finishing the campaign, that this whole time I could have moved the garbage dumpster (mobile barricade, it's required for destroying portals) across to the other half of the map. This wasn't obvious. The dumpster is typically located and pointing in the direction of your level-objective (cave, etc) so you'll have to drag it back towards your home base before you see the npcs turn it around and face it the other way. This is how you clear both ends of the map. You will want to clear both ends of each map. There is no lighthouse, but you will get goodies still, like a larger coin purse. There are also additional mounts (bikes) for you to find. Many will have abilities seen in other kingdom games, such as faster mobility while in the forest, or a machine gun, or a flame trail.

This is not the best Kingdom game ever, but it does have the 80's charm and the quality of life changes in this game will likely make this the most accessible Kingdom game for new players unfamiliar with the series to jump right in, and maybe get them interested in New Lands or Two Crowns. I would say this game is worth the current price at 10% off, or even full price, as this is still cheaper than going to a movie theater today. If you are new to the series, it's far more friendly than the previous games. If you are a veteran of this series, maybe give Hard or Cursed difficulties a shot, otherwise you might not think this game challenging enough to scratch the itch.

o7
End of an era.

It's janky, but it's good-janky. Shadow Distance is pretty short, but object distance is great. I made the mistake of having an Xbox controller plugged in and turned on, because I was playing a different game before booting this one up, so the instructions on the right have of the screen were displaying half keyboard / half gamepad controls, which was very confusing, and I still don't know which key to press to turn on the sirens, because it was partially obscured by DPAD LEFT and another function.
It is definitely meant to be played with others. I think there's a lot to love here, a lot of fun to be had here, and I might have seen some development roadmap about planned features. Like I said: It's janky, but I think it's the good janky right now, where it's still entertaining. I have sunk money into worse Early Access and Steam Greenlight titles, some that never even got finished or past the alpha stage. I do wish there was more polish in here for a 1.0 release.

Played when it first launched in August before the Steam launch. Brought in a bunch of friend with me. The combat was really nice, the pulls were plentiful, the toggle for auto-climb was the best thing, because in Genshin combat, you'd try to dodge an enemy attack and randomly start climbing ♥♥♥♥ for no reason, so this was a HUGE plus for Tower of Fantasy. Less than a month after launch, most of my friends had left this game and returned to Genshin, or would eventually move on to Honkai Star Rail or whatever. I stuck around because I legitimately enjoyed the time I was spending in this game. Unfortunately, player numbers have plunged into dangerous levels. They had done some server merges before, no big deal, but just this week they merged most of the North American servers all together, and then they stole my character's name which I've had since day one. I did a search for the other players who had my name, all of which were less than level 14. I was level 90 with over 90k CS, and had spent over a thousand USD on this game, but they ultimately stole my name and gave it to an inactive player, as customer service argued the the person who took my name had somehow managed to have made their character before I did, keep in mind I've been playing this since launch and anyone else with my name would have to be inactive since August if they were still under level 14 and have somehow had the timestamp that matters. Customer Service then accused me of trying to coerce them to "unjustly" "tamper" with other players accounts for "personal gain". So I've now uninstalled, and all my other friends who still were playing Tower of Fantasy with me have also uninstalled.

Long story short: I don't often praise Blizzard, especially the World of Warcraft team, but Blizzard's inactive character name change policy is the best and should be the standard across every single live service MMO. This game blows. Their player numbers are dwindling. The PS5 launch will not save them.

And to make matters worse, before I typed all this, I went to Arby's to buy a large jamocha shake and learned that they made the large smaller. My whole day is ruined. GG Hotta, rest in piss.

Builds up to a very satisfying payout. Absolutely worth your time.

The worst part about this game is that I played it for too long before realizing how bad it is so I can't refund it. It's really bad. It's terrible. No guard-cancelling to interrupt your own attack combos in order to avoid being struck, so if you're starting a 5-hit combo, you're committed to it and will take whatever damage. Pointless throwing weapons. There's no light or heavy attack, it's just one button to attack. Obnoxious bosses that teleport around the room and have enormous health pools and numerous health bars stacked upon health bars. Trash mobs can interrupt your ninja arts as well as your combos. Trash mobs can also stun lock you. The combat is just not anywhere near as satisfying as SK Estival Versus. The combat has a god awful auto aim similar to Genshin Impact. When you press the attack button, you attack towards the nearest enemy, even if it's not the enemy that you're pointing your analog stick at. When you kill an enemy mid-combo, you'll swing at an enemy 16-feet away from you, it just auto aims for the nearest. The game is doing too many things and it doesn't know what it's supposed to be. Seriously, give the old guy his game back. Size is Justice and there is no Justice here. The only thing this game has going for it is it look pretty. Even Nep breaking the fourth wall every other topic gets old here, and I loved that crap in the other Neptunia games.

I know there's a lot of folks in here complaining about the lack of intimacy mode and clothes breaking that are common in SK games, but that's only the tip of the iceberg, and hardly the most horrendous thing this game has done for Senran Kagura.