Recent reviews by JonBoi

I originally bought Bleed on a whim on the Xbox 360 arcade platform about ten years ago, and I'm very glad I did.
I will always come back to do another playthrough of this game every once in a while. It is simply one of the most well designed, tightly controlling action platformers ever made.

If you are a fan of sidescrolling action games, shmups, and/or bullet hell games, you OWE it to yourself to play Bleed 1 and 2. There simply isn't a better value of gameplay to price within this genre.

A serious contender for best rogue-like of all time.

Here is a review from someone with about 10 hours in:

This is quite possibly the best RPG I've ever played, and I'm not usually an RPG guy.
The sheer amount of possibilities for every scenario in the entire game so far is so vast that it almost gives me anxiety. I feel so uniquely relaxed and stimulated at the same time. I feel that I'm given all the time in the world to make every decision, but still that every decision matters greatly. AND I'm savescumming. The Devs took my savescumming into account. They're smarter than me. They know the game better than me. They've assertively forced me into having a phenomenal RPG experience. I didn't expect this, but it's great.

Combat is important in a modern RPG and I can promise, unless you played the first DOS (I didn't), you're going to see your new favorite and gold standard of turn-based combat. I actually bought this game thinking it had hack-n-slash combat like Champions of Norrath (the entire reason I bought it tbh), but I was wrong and I'm happy I was. The combat is like an entire skill by itself. The elemental interactions are entertaining and the potential for abstract strategy is seemingly infinite. I won a fight against melee-only enemies by teleporting them all behind a table and ranging them to death. You really can go buckwild with your ideas.

Nearly every character is interesting to talk to and every battle is a chess match that you're allowed to make up the rules for. This feels like the RPG that makes me like RPGs. Buy it, play it. There is no gamer I wouldn't recommend this to. It's that good.

11/10 so far. ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. It's so good.

I played this game all the way through in single player. Initially, I purchased the game to play with my friends. But, they lost interest and we only ever fought a single boss together, which was one I had already beaten solo. I still recommend the game, but it's definitely best enjoyed with friends, and my review is entirely void of that experience.

This game has bland visuals, limited weapon/item varieties, boring to okay level structures (procedural), and very basic combat. On the surface, it has little going for it, but I believe it's greater than the sum of it's parts. Nearly any single aspect of the game is disappointing under a microscope, yet I enjoyed my time through the campaign greatly. There are definite low-points. One was so bad, I quit for a few months before returning to finish (looking at you, swamp). I'm a big fan of Resident Evil 4 and this game, mechanically, is a step FORWARD in that gameplay formula, not a step BACK from the Souls series.

I wrote this review on a whim because I'm about to boot the game and try Adventure mode to find some of the more interesting weapons and items I missed on my campaign playthrough.
I only warn that if you intend to play solo, you will encounter bosses that force you to change almost your entire build, so it's best to save some resources for leveling in a new area than spending them as they are received. Also, the final boss is possibly the easiest in the game and was wholly disappointing.

Not Dark Souls with guns; Resident Evil 4 co-op for the modern age.