Recent reviews by Vesper

Plays it safe in some areas and has a little bit of a reliance on nostalgia, but I think it's allowed a little of that for the 30th anniversary game.

In terms of gameplay, it is largely split between two different playstyles. The first is Grace, our new lead, a rookie FBI agent whose gameplay is similar to that of Resident Evil 7 with some stealth elements. Your supplies are limited and you need to scavenge and craft ammo, health etc and best decide how to manage your resources. If you're a fan of the classic Resident Evil, there's an optional difficulty mode for you to need ink ribbons to save as Grace too.

These Grace sections are excellent, though I do wish there was a bit more of her and she is largely a secondary character in gameplay despite largely being positioned as the main character from a story perspective.

Now, if you're a big fan of Leon Kennedy (who isn't) and RE4, you're eating well with this game. Instead of scavenging and scraping buy, Leon is doing his classic roundhouse kicks and mowing down everything in his path. His early game sections are deceptively easy, but to the middle and latter parts of the game you'll start to see a bit more challenge there.

Finished 3 runs of the game. A standard mode run, a casual mode run to get the under 4 hours unlock and the completion points for no healing or crafting as Grace, then the Insanity mode victory lap with all the unlocks. A regular playthrough of the game will probably clock you about 15 or so hours (the game undercounts quite heavily with its in game timers) if you're thorough in your exploration.

roguelike peggle but it looks like microsoft bob the sun is going to explode nubby please help nubby

it's good

This game is basically crack cocaine tuned into a video game.

Essentially, this game is poker, but you have special "Joker" cards that allow you to gain multipliers and swing the odds in your favour in various ways. You will lose a lot. You will keep playing. This is it. Most gamblers quit before they win it big, but you're not a quitter, are you?

There are various decks that change what you have in your hand at the start, or give their own bonuses/penalties. Winning on a deck can unlock a new deck and there are various unlockables throughout the game that keep it feeling fresh and each run feeling different.

Also Jimbo the funny lil guy who talks to you throughout the game is my son and I love him, he is my baby boy and you have to buy this game for him.

Now you too can be an exploited minimum wage fast-food worker from the comfort of your own home.

Played this all in one sitting and it took 6-7 hours, but it might be a few hours longer for you as I am a quick reader.

Citizen Sleeper is a light CRPG that has a presentation quite similar to Disco Elysium. You have to manage your time in each cycle whilst making enough money to be able to sustain yourself and react to changing circumstances. The Eye is full of an array of characters to meet with their own interesting stories and motivations to meet as you strive towards various goals.

In terms of gameplay, there isn't too much to speak of. This is where the comparison to Disco Elysium is apt as the game is presented in the form of utilising your skills and making choices through dialogue and having the story delivered to you through text. It's not nearly as complicated as Disco Elysium and this game is much smaller in scope, but that is not a bad thing.

Outside of that, I found the writing to be engaging, complimented with good visuals and some great music/sound design that compliments the immersive experience of the game.

Yeah, I like the game. You should buy it. It's good.

More Stanley Parable? Yes, please. The old game and more!

See you in 10 years, Cookie9.

Charming little indie game about doing crime. Beat it in about 3 hours, so it is short, but sweet! I am a quick reader, so it may take most people 4 or so hours.

Great writing, great music, and it is generally just pretty silly fun. Would recommend it to anyone!

It's Cookie Clicker. You click a cookie. Number get big.

You know what this is.

Wow...what a game. Many other people have made this comparison as well, but I think it is certainly accurate to say that this is a combination of 7 and 4. Capcom knows their survival horror and they've certainly been on an uptrend with the quality of their games ever since 7 came out, so if you enjoyed that game and/or the recent remakes, you really should try this game.

If you're a newcomer, you might not get some parts of the story, especially towards the latter part of the game. That being said, the game still stands up well enough on its own and I would recommend it for anyone.

I'm going to preface this review by saying that there have been a lot of technical issues reported by many people and I personally experienced some frequent crashes around the third Jail of this game. However, with the new beta patch applied, those issues seem to be resolved and I have had a crash free experience! So make sure you opt into the beta up until the patch goes live properly.

Also, this game does use Denuvo Anti-Temper, which is controversial for many reasons including proven performance impacts as seen by games that have had the middleware removed. Some people very much dislike Denuvo, so it's only fair to make sure you're aware that is is there in case that is something that would impact your purchase. In that case, you may wish to consider either not purchasing the game, or seeking out its PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch ports if you own those systems.

With that out of the way, I can talk about how I actually feel about the game itself.

Persona 5 Strikers is a spin off of...Persona 5, funnily enough. It's by Koei Tecmo, the developers of the Warriors games. I personally am not a fan of those games, so I was pretty relieved when I found that Strikers is actually not a Warriors game. While it shares some of the base components e.g. controlling a party of heroes fighting large groups of enemies, the similarities pretty much end there.

In terms of combat, the game is a lot more focused on keeping your party alive, managing your HP/SP, and taking advantage of your enemies' weaknesses to gain control over the battle. In that regard, those tactical elements make the game feel strangely a lot like a Persona game in execution even with the change to real time action combat. Like many of the other Persona games, you also visit the Velvet Room to acquire and fuse new Personas throughout the game to give you more powerful tools to deal with the enemies. Social links are not in this game, but are replaced with a 'bond' system where you gain points to spend on upgrades for your party by interacting with them, cooking new recipes, and completing requests.

The ways these mechanics compliment each other help to make this feel a lot different from other spin offs and make it feel much more like a companion to the main Persona games rather than just another cash grab. Added to this, this isn't another dancing game, or non-canon 'it was all a dream' type spin off, but an actual direct sequel to Persona 5. However, this does mean that the game will spoil the events of Persona 5. This makes this game kind of a strange choice to release considering that game is not on PC, but it was likely easier to port a game that was already in active development.

If you have only played the original Persona 5, you will not be spoiled for the events of Royal as this game started development before Royal. Atlus likely also did not share any of the new plot elements of the re-release with Koei Tecmo, so Royal is not referenced at all in this game.

I cannot recommend this game much if you're a newcomer to the series, but if you are a Persona fan that enjoyed the hell out of 5, this feels pretty much like more Persona 5. In terms of story, it does retread some elements from the previous game and lift some elements into the new story and many of the 'twists' of the game's story are pretty easy to see coming. If you've played other Persona games, or are just generally familiar with the tropes of these types of games, you'll see where the story is going pretty easily. That being said, it is still a well executed and enjoyable story even if predictable.

Lastly...the music. Yeah. This a Persona game. It's got pretty great music.

Why are you still reading this and not playing Persona 5 Strikers?!