Recent reviews by SherbertLand

im not crying youre crying ;-;

haru's character development was very dragged out, especially during act 2, but the payoff was so worth it that i dont even care. she finally got to be happy, and when she let herself enjoy her life when the people around her were there for her it was the best way to close her story off. (take note, terrace)
just wish she was less closed off to it in act 2, but i cant say its an unrealistic portrayal. enjoyable? not a lot, but again the payoff more than made up for it.

seeing erika go from not knowing anything about being trans and asking some somewhat invasive/insensitive questions to saying "if i could go meet kid you id tell her that she would grow up to be an amazing woman" almost made me cry. (we stan erika, best trans ally!)

manami's chapter really made me question where i fall on the romantic-aromantic spectrum, i was very pleasantly surprised that her at-the-time boyfriend, tatsuya(?), turned out to be incredibly supportive and understanding, even if he was uneducated. hell, dude went the extra mile and did a boatload of research about being aroace and offered to share that with manami. bravo dude.

easy recommendation, hit me right in the feels the whole way through.

So the quality of this game is definitely a controversial topic and both sides do have a lot of good points. The few things I don't like about this game are: The climbing is even more clunky than in Boneworks - fisticuffs is still as effective as slapping someone with a wet paper towel, even with the super strong avatars - aaaaaaand... yeah that's it. Melee combat sucks and climbing is clunky.

However, the rest of the game is absolutely an upgrade from Boneworks.

Guns are much easier to reload, with much more room for user error as compared to when you try to load a magazine into a gun in Boneworks and it completely misses. Here, not once have I found it difficult or annoying to reload. And speaking of reloading, the reload animations are so, so satisfying and smooth. Boneworks didn't have much with reload animations; you put the mag in, ♥♥♥♥ the gun, and the chamber just kind of snaps back and forth as you do so. In Bonelab, when you ♥♥♥♥ the gun, the chamber slides back and forth with your hand, AND you can see the bullet inside the chamber get pushed out of the mag and into the chamber. Beautiful.

On the flipside to fisticuffs being horrible, other forms of melee combat actually works better. I found myself holding onto the knife I found at the start of the game for almost the entire run, and I loved using it because it just worked so well. I surprised myself a lot at the start, every time I charged an enemy knife in hand I thought "this is either going to bounce right off of them, or it'll go right into their neck and still not kill them." And yet, every time, they were instantly killed.

I really like how its so much clearer what enemies do what. For example, Boneworks has a variation of the Nullbody that has the ability to throw an incredibly powerful projectile at you and high speeds. Problem is, this Nullbody variation looks identical to the regular one. I constantly found myself being caught off guard by a flying void ball hitting me simply because I didn't know that one of the Nullbodies could throw it. Bonelab clearly took note of this and not only gave this Nullbody variant a completely different look, but also scrapped Corrupt Nullbodies which are the exact same as regular Nullbodies, just with a different color.

One problem I had with Boneworks is that a lot of the game was just a lot of the same. It had its moments, but overall it was just a lot of *wander around in a sewer or city street - encounter an enemy - kill enemy - rinse and repeat.* Bonelab mixes up the monotony of Boneworks gameplay all the time, even having an entire part of the story mode being dedicated to rushing through different minigames; from tower defense, to go-cart racing, to jumping on the moon, all incredibly fun and interesting and they control well.

The biggest issue I see people talk about is the fact that the story mode isn't just GIVEN to you, you have to find it. And that is a very fair criticism, because these days people are used to games holding their hand and being upfront with what to do and where to go, making objectives clear and sometimes just holding your hand throughout the entire story mode. Bonelab however doesn't do that, and I personally think its better off for it. The thing is, the character you play as doesn't know a thing about the lab. They just stumble upon it after escaping execution and fleeing down an unexplored cave. And with virtual reality being virtual REALITY, its more immersive to place you into the mind of the character you're playing instead of already knowing everything while your character knows nothing. If you stumbled onto an abandoned lab that breaks reality in real life, you would also have to figure out how to do things.
That being said, they don't leave you in the dark completely. To unlock story mode, you have to play the 6 different sandbox modes available when you first find the lab. Once you leave a mode you just played, you'll notice a beam of light emitting from the top of the entrance to that mode. On closer inspection, that beam comes from a box that was once locked, and is now unlocked. Each box has one part of the key, and you solve from there while exploring the lab.
Again, with how used to the hand-holding people are, its perfectly fair for this to be a turn-off for some people. However, objectively, if you don't like it, then its just one of those occasions in video games where thats your opinion. Its perfectly valid, however other people might enjoy that aspect of exploration. So instead of saying "They make you look for the story mode so its objectively bad," instead say "I wasn't a fan of how they make you figure out how to progress through the story because such-and-such reasons, but some people might find enjoyment out of it."

Another thing that people talk about a lot, and to quote from another review; "I was non-consensually turned into an anime girl and I want my money back."
And its just... why is that such a turn off for some people? You're demanding a refund because the game had a section where you explore different strengths of different avatars, and you didn't like the fact that one of the avatars was a women. Seems like someone has some fragile masculinity, huh?

This game sets out to do exactly what it wants to do: be a downright difficult and annoying game that feeds off your emotions. It’s well done, falling down will always have a severe impact on your progress, and the level layout itself is very memorable. The narration does exactly what it’s supposed to do, keep you going while also annoying your soul out of your body. It’s a difficult game. That doesn’t mean it can’t be enjoyable, though. For most people this will apply to every playthrough accept for the first one, however if you stay calm your first playthrough can also apply here. This game is a wonderful experience. The narration is insightful and enjoyable, personally I find falling down and redoing what I’ve already done (and by extension, doing multiple playthroughs) very enjoyable because it lets me see how far I’ve come, how fast I’ve gotten. Getting to the top is always satisfying, and it’s always nice to see a sort of attachment that Bennet gets for the player.

It’s sad that looking through peoples negative reviews of the game, it’s almost always something like “I hate this game because it’s too hard” which is like eating sushi and you slather it with wasabi then give the restaurant a 1 star review for the sushi burning your mouth and causing your stomach to explode. You know what you signed up for, the product did it’s job, you’re complaining over something intentional. The narration, the controls, the very concept, it’s all designed to piss you off. I couldn’t find any reviews that were actual critiques of the game and not just little Timmy being mad about a game that is literally called Getting Over It with Bennet Foddy.