Game Comments

I comment on games I’ve been playing recently here. Most are JRPGs or indies, but I also play other genres. Comments mostly spoiler free. I also talk about games on Mastodon.

Notes: Alphabetical order. The year indicates the original release year. Series may be bundled together.

• Dark Souls (2011): First tried playing it on PC a long time ago, but it didn't click. Gave it another try after watching quite a few speedruns, watching a roommate beat Bloodborne and Sekiro, and playing a few other soulslike myself. The second time was pretty great. (More.)
• Dodgeball Academia (2021): like the Mario Tennis on GBA, but for dodgeball. As a bonus, it’s Brazilian and the Portuguese text is very good.
• Donut County (2018): short puzzle game where you make things fall into an ever increasing hole. Finite amount of well designed levels. First watched a friend play around release time, then bought it for myself a few years later.
• inbento (2019): short puzzle game. Doesn’t get too hard (the mechanics do allow some infernal puzzles, but that’s not the vibe of this game). Also has cute drawings of cats.
• Inscryption (2021): Inscryption is very good. Unfortunately, it's also very hard to talk about without spoilers. It might feel hard at the beginning, but it is stacked in favor of the player. Go in blind.
• Horizon Chase Turbo (2018): A modern version of the Top Gear games (also similar to Outrun). I do have some childhood memories of Top Gear 2000, but this was way more fun than the older games because of quality of life improvements. It has splitscreen co-op, it was good to play with my sister. (Bonus: just one player needs to win to get the points to advance; it feels more cooperative than competitive in general.) It has loads of side modes and some DLC campaigns, but I was satisfied with the main one. Bonus: it's made by a Brazilian company, and has quite a few references to Brazilian car culture; see an example here.
• The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker (2002): Played on the Game Cube on 2021. Was a pretty good 3D Zelda game. Only the stealth section was a little bit too annoying. Also, the sailing was a bit slow, but I've heard that it got faster on the HD remakes.
• Little King's Story (2009): It's a wonderful game. Bought it on release. Replayed in 2025 and had a very good time (and this time I got to the end). Would recommend to anyone who is interested strategy games (it plays like Pikmin and Overlord). (More.)
• Mega Man Zero/ZX Legacy Collection (2002–2007): Lots of memories about these. I used to play Zero 3 and Zero 4 when I was a kid. I was also very bad at these games. At that time, I really wanted to play ZX, but never was able to. It was pretty good to play the whole series. (More.)
• Moon: remix RPG adventure (1997): Played Moon on my Switch. Pretty quirky game, the writing and character design is just great. Unfortunately it is a little too slow for my head to handle. A few qualities of life would have made it perfect (at least fast-forwarding would be pretty useful for experimenting). It is quite an experience, if you are in the right mindset. I've heard that it inspired Undertale.
• Olli Olli World (2022): fun arcade skate game. Difficulty is quite variable, on the first worlds it’s mostly easy, then gets very hard. To get to the end of the story you only need to get to the end of most stages; the extra challenges unlock more clothes for your character. The DLCs are mostly more stages, with some new mechanics; recommended only if you want even more.
• Moonlighter (2018): half rogue-like, half shop simulator. The combat is fine, a big drawback is that you have to commit to two main weapon types or grind a lot; I found the price discovery quite illegible. Nice gameplay loop, but it gets repetitive.
• Scarlet Nexus (2021): bought because it seemed like a good action RPG. It indeed is. A big downside is that the game has two main characters, with two stories to play through, but they intersect quite a bit. Played with one of the characters and was satisfied; not sure if I’ll go back to the other character.
• Shin Megami Tensei V (2021): I decided to buy my switch when this was announced a few years ago. It fulfilled my quite high expectations. It’s a quite solid dungeon crawler with an okay story. While it’s story is a little bit sparse, it’s main beats hit hard. One could say it is a more modern take on SMT3. You travel through a post-apocalyptic Tokyo, can befriend demons (maybe a not good choice for the english translation), and things happen. (More.)
• Summon Night: Swordcraft Story (2003): Very solid small JRPG for the GBA. The combat is very fun, and the story is serviceable. It also has a short extra dungeon after the main story; no story in it, but it's a fun extra hour or two. (More.)
• Sword and Fairy: Together Forever (2021): This is the worst videogame translation I've seen in a long time. The combat is fun, but there are so many badly translated cutscenes that the games feels like a slog. May be better if you are fluent in Mandarin. (Spoilers from TV Tropes make it look like a good story.)
• Trails in the Sky (2004, 2006, 2007): I'd heard these games have a lot of text, so I wasn't expecting much. It does have a lot of text. Sometimes I spent one or two hours just reading text. But the story is well paced (maybe slow, depending on one's taste), and develops the characters throughly. One of the best stories in the RPGs I've played before, and I'm looking for the next games.(More.)
• Trails from the Zero, Trails to Azure (2010, 2011): The second arc of the best RPG series you are not going to play. Wonderful story, but very slow burning: you need to play the Sky sub-series, or the story will make little sense. Zero has one of the best character developments I've ever seen (building up on SC and 3rd).
• Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion (2021): short punny games with 2D Zelda-like mechanics. Fun, doesn’t overstay its welcome, mechanics are serviceable. Difficulty adjustable.
• Undertale (2015): Undertale is probably the most emotional games I’ve ever played. If you like story games (with a few action(?)/RPG elements), just play it. Better enjoyed spoiler-free.
• Vampire Survivors (2022): addictive, to say the least. Uninstalled after I got good enough to be able to finish a few runs. I recommend the noclip documentary on it.
• Yoku's Island Express (2018): Nice little metroidvania with pinball mechanics. Has some nice challenges but plenty of checkpoints; very relaxing overall. Using pinball for exploration was very fun. The game is long enough to get a good fell of the controls, but not too long to get boring.
• Ys: Origin (2006): action RPG with simple but wonderful combat system. I played the three available characters; by the last one I was tired of the story, but not of the combat. The three characters also have a nice progression from easier to harder (mostly with respect to attack range).

Last updated 1 month ago.