Recent reviews by Botul

Pac-Man World 2 was a great game, but it had a few rough spots. Pac-Man World (1) Re-PAC was a very conservative remake, it changed a few things (mainly making the game easier) but it was for the most part the exact same game. Pac-Man World 2 Re-PAC is, in comparison, more of a "what if we made this game today" type of remake.

The biggest and most obvious (at least to me) difference is the movement. PMW2's physics were very aggressive, for lack of a better term. Hitting bumps during rev rolls would send you flying in the opposite direciton, butt-bouncing onto a slope would give the player insane velocity (often straight into a pit), jumping off when hanging on a moving platform's ledge would send you flying, and so on. Re-PAC gives the player a ton more control, but that also leads to rev rolls not being as fun in some of the stages.

The player's moveset has been expanded. The flutter and pellet throw from the first Re-PAC have returned, and the player can now do a super butt bounce by butt bouncing with a specific timing. This launches the player really high in the air, and it's pretty fun to use.

The levels have gone through some pretty major changes to account for the new movement. Most sections from the original game have been left intact, others have been modified to better fit the new moveset, and some are completely new. Many of the big setpieces from the original have been made even cooler, one example being Ice River Run having some new hazards and ghosts who try to slow you down, or Haunted Boardwalk having rail and wallrunning sections. Backtracking is easier than in the old levels, you can't always backtrack due to parts where the player falls down or travels with the pac-dot chain, but it felt like there was less of that here. Unfortunately the early levels use the later Japanese version layouts, which means that the bottomless pits are replaced with solid ground, a bit of a shame.

Progression is slightly different than the original game. The map is structured differently, but all of the levels are still in the same order. The tokens are now used to unlock figurines (I didn't care about that part of the game at all) and aren't required for 100%ing the level, they also respawn. The pac-dot requirement for 100%ing a level was removed, meaning that levels which were a nightmare to complete like Haunted Boardwalk due to precise pac-dot chains in jumps are no longer a huge pain.

In the original PMW2, Blinky, Pinky and Inky all reused the same ghost mech boss, each one of those was replaced by a unique fight, all of which are pretty good. All the boss fights now have at least two phases, the second of which is usually significantly harder than the first one. Additionally, there is now a fight against Wormwood, something which was famously not there in the original.

By far the worst part of the original game were the water levels, despite having underwater segments in other levels, the water levels were really boring autoscrollers. Re-PAC replaces all of these with entirely new levels which are way more fun. Even the Yellow Pac-Marine was made infinitely more fun than the awful original version.

As always, not everything is perfect. There were a few times where Pac-Man wouldn't grab onto a ledge for whatever reason, costing me a life. I also found the time trials to be pretty bad. On some levels I could die a few times and still be well below the gold time requirement, other times (especially on some of the boss fights) the timer was so tight I had to find exploits to finish the fights quicker than intended to even get close. I also wish that Ghost Island kept it's original black/orange color scheme instead of the new brown/purple one.

My other main disappointment with the game is the mission system. This was a great oppurtunity to give levels replay value, but on the vast majority of the stages all of the missions are things like "eat all fruit", "destroy every crate", "kill every enemy", and so on. There were maybe 5 unique missions that made me replay levels with them in mind, and I wish there were more of those.

SPOILERS FOR RE-PAC:
After witnessing the post-credits scene, a new set of levels is unlocked. I'd compare this to the Dark Worlds from Super Meat Boy. Each world in this alternate Pac-Land has a level made out of segments seen in the normal levels from that world, and a harder version of the boss fight. I found these pretty fun (especially the new ice slide level), and the fight against Spooky was way harder than the normal version. I wish there were more new cutscenes, there's one at the start, one when fighting against the frog, and then nothing up until Spooky.

Beating the alternate Spooky fight unlocks one last challenge, a rematch against Toc-Man. The fight is really fun, each phase is unique and the last one feels like a Dark Souls boss fight, it's a great final challenge to end the game on.

In short, PAC-MAN WORLD 2 Re-PAC is a really fun remake of one of my favorite games. Despite having some things I dislike, I find it to be at the very least just as good as the original. Is it better? Hard to say, and I don't want to let recency bias win me over. I had a good time with it.

Not as good as the base game, but also better than the 70% positive reviews would have you believe.

The hands having collision is something you need to get used to but after that, it's great

always gamble

What was good in the base game is still good here, what was bad in the base game is still bad here. The world is fun to explore and visually stunning, but a ton of areas don't have enough useful loot to bother fully exploring. Boss fights are a mixed bag, fights like Messmer and Midra are very fun, but others (like the final boss) are very annoying to fight. Fights like the Divine Beast Dancing Lion and, again, the final boss, use tons of attacks with huge AoE's which generate ton of visual noise.

The biggest issue with the DLC is the performance, it runs awful. Going from the DLC areas to the Lands Between feels like stepping out of mud with how many frames you gain. The framerate is unacceptable at times.

TL;DR: mixed bag, enjoyed it a ton, but it suffers from the same issues as the base game, and the performance is awful

I expected to waste 5 minutes messing around with ragdolls just to end up quitting the game after getting bored, instead spent 17 hours of my life getting everything I can out of the game.

Huge improvement over the first game (which was already pretty good), characters interact with each other more, the stories are less generic, combat is more fun, great sequel. Makes me hope we'll get a 3rd game one day.

always gamble

Great gameplay, great music, worst, most unbearable dialogue known to man. Thank God for the skip cutscene button, total cringefest

For clarity: This review will be a bit biased, since I’m friends with the developer. I paid for the game myself, and will try review it fairly.

(Also, ignore my playtime, I spent a lot of time in the playtest versions, both on and off Steam).

REAVER is a fast paced arena shooter with a focus on pulling combos. The early access build has 9 campaign levels, one bonus level and an endless mode. The gameplay consists of running around levels and pulling off combos to kill enemies, with an occasional boss here and there.

If all this sounds familiar, that’s probably because you’ve heard of ULTRAKILL, so you might be thinking to yourself “why should I play this? It looks like a rip off!”. You should play it because it’s not a rip off. The two games share some ideas, but it would be unfair to call REAVER a clone, it’s simply a different take. I personally enjoyed it, maybe you will too.