Recent reviews by MangleMan

Addictive

Waited a long time for this to actually release for some reason. Runs fine on Steam Deck, as expected.

But ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, 770 red rings costs $45 USD? For the price of a Sir Percival skin in this game, you could buy multiple other games elsewhere on the Steam store. And that skin's current price is on a **discount**, the actual amount is closer to $60 USD, I believe. I get that this game is free to play, but jesus ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ christ, talk about predatory monetization practice. They're gonna kill this game in the crib like they did Sonic Runners, I reckon.

Save your money and buy Bubsy 4D or something, don't waste it on a skin in some Fall Guys clone just cuz you like the blue rat.

This is a good game and I greatly appreciate the standard it sets for game preservation, thus, I'd like to leave it a positive review, but I don't feel at liberty to do so whatsoever since I purchased the regular version of the game and not the Deluxe Edition bundle. I did so thinking that I'd be able to purchase the added costumes as DLC separately later on and because I was low on expendable income for the month, but this was the incorrect move to make. If you buy the standard version of this game, you're running the risk of never being able to play it with the costumes, because you can't purchase the same game twice obviously, and, in an uncharacteristically scummy move on WayForward's part (uncharacteristically of the indie gaming scene in general to my experience), you can ONLY get the costumes in the Deluxe bundle. I'd had Shantae Advance in my Steam library for multiple weeks before realizing I'd cut myself off from ever being able to play a finished version of the game on my most played platform. Valve is generous with their refunds, I know so from refunding Postal III twice now, but that won't cut it for Shantae Advance in all likelihood. Now if I want to play this with the costumes to add any organic replayability to the game, I would have to buy the game for a THIRD f*cking time. I bought the physical GBA version, it didn't come with the costumes on it. And now since I initially bought the standard version of Shantae Advance on Steam, I'm locked out of one of the bigger distinguishing factors between the basic 2004, GBA version of the game and the updated console versions? What an irritating issue to have. Do better, WF.

Is this all a product of WayForward's bizarre, incestuous relationship with Limited Run Games, a company which I know of to be rather cheap and scummy alot of the time? If LRG is holding you hostage, WayForward, blink twice.

Unlike most, I'm not going to leave an ironic review here, so if you're just reading reviews of this game for the funny then feel free to skip mine. Or read it. Up to you.

I'll add some background to this review just for context, and because I think it's an exemplary case of the age-old adage, "One man's trash is another man's treasure." I first played this game years and years ago about 2 years after it released or so, maybe 1 year after, and I'd picked it up from a local game store. The game was sold for a mere 15 dollars or so, barely more than the price of a large meal from some fast food joint. I had been convinced to pick it up for a couple of reasons. First of all, I had been watching a YouTube reviewer named the LJN Defender, whose reviews I actually tended to agree with, and I enjoyed his (now her) more laid-back style of review. Not really any exaggerated persona to tear into games, just honest analysis and a will to give maligned games a fair shot. I remember watching Morgan's review of Bubsy: The Woolies Strike Back and thinking to myself, "hey, if I get the chance, I might pick that game up." Lo and behold, there it was in my local Retro Replay. I was living with my mom at the time in a trailer park, and budget for games was low, needless to say. I was still a Nintendrone at the time, so I had no PS4 games of my own, but I wanted to have one to play on my brother's PS4 that he kept at my mom's place. So, all these combining factors, gaming on a budget, disliked games usually being cheap, and it being recommended by one YTer that was willing to give the most hated of games their fair shake, plus my own curiosity and feeling most comfortable with platformers at the time despite the wide variety of genres on display on the PS4, I picked up Bubsy: The Woolies Strike Back, and I had a blast with it. I have a good bit of sentimental attachment to this game, and my time playing it on Steam is hardly my first rodeo.

That said, Bubsy: The Woolies Strike Back is pretty underrated. Everything is mechanically solid, Bubsy controls really well. He's extremely maneuverable in the air and has responsive movement on the ground. Yarnballs are satisfying to collect, mainly thanks to their dopamine-generating popping sound upon contact. Levels are well-designed with some obscured areas you'll potentially need to move the camera around to find if you're a completionist type, and 100%ing this game isn't too hard, actually pretty fun considering how there's only 11 achievements. TWSB doesn't suffer from cheap deaths like some of the older Bubsy games do thanks to the inclusion of shield shirts, which are functionally just the Super Mushroom from Mario but a bit flashier, imo anyway. In this game, Bubsy's glide disappointingly doesn't carry his momentum like in Claws Encounters of the Furred Kind or Fractured Furry Tales, games w/ a heavier emphasis on momentum like their Sonic game inspirations, but it functions more like a double-jump. The difficulty progression in this game is fair, but it never reaches the levels of hard any of the previous entries do, possibly as a byproduct of feeling so much more streamlined.

Of course, I think much of the hate this game receives is just because... well, it's named Bubsy. Any 1/5s or 5/10s or worse for this game (thinking of that one abysmal MonsterVine review) are hyperbolic and ludicrously exaggerated. Besides Bubsy 3D and Bubsy 2 for Game Boy maybe, no Bubsy games are contenders for the worst games of all time. Hardly. Now, granted, The Woolies Strike Back has still got a couple of issues that I can understand making people not think much of the game. For one, all of the bosses are UFOs of one kind or another, progressing in difficulty with each successive one. Not much of interest there. There's nothing really wrong with them technically, people just mind find the bosses a snoozefest. Secondly, the enemy variety in this game is extremely lacking, not just bosses. Most of the enemies in TWSB are just Woolies, the main antagonists of the first game and Bubsy 3D. Their inclusion is fine of course, but the only enemies other than them are the bees, who don't appear past the second, desert environment in the game. Compared with literally any of the classic games, be it Claws Encounters, Bubsy 2, or Fractured Furry Tales, this is very lacking, and can possibly contribute to a feeling of repetition to many players. And the game's biggest issue is its length. It's only around 2 to 3 hours long, depending on how thorough of a player you are. I have as many hours as I do cuz I have some nostalgic attachment to this game and want to rise on the leaderboards cuz I'm an obsessive freak, but most people won't get that much time out of this game, even if they're going for 100%. Technically, there're 14 levels, but 1 of those is the tutorial stage and 3 of those are boss stages, so really, there's about 10 standard levels. If that's the crux of some people's disdain for this game, I guess I can get it, but I'm of the opinion that it's better a game leave me wanting more than overstay its welcome.

Like I've said, I think this game is actually fun enough for anyone to enjoy, but considering the length is barely longer than Sonic Forces, I recommend picking it up on a sale. Don't just let the name "Bubsy" scare you off, I say. And hey, go into the upcoming Bubsy 4D with that same mindset.

Plays really well on Steam Deck. Greatly appreciate the inclusion of such a deep cut as Fractured Furry Tales, which was stuck on the Atari Jaguar of all things. They even include an improved version of Bubsy 3D. While it is given analog controls now finally, it's still not that great to control. Especially jumping on enemies' heads.

Regardless, as a collection and isolated from the quality of the games themselves (which I think are mostly fine anyway), this is pretty spectacular. All the games feel like they do in their original form despite being ported to the Carbon Engine, and they even give you the choice between different consoles' versions of the games, which I like since I prefer Bubsy 1 on SNES but Bubsy 2 on Sega Genesis. They also include a bunch of bonus content like magazine segments, Bubsy's old manual comics, so on and so forth. As a collection of Bubsy's classic games, Purrfect Collection does circles around Two-Fur, which has, since Purrfect Collection's release, seemingly been delisted. Not much of value being lost in the process. And I'd go as far as to say Purrfect Collection outdoes recent collections from Mario AND Sonic, believe it or not.

Considering the number of games present, I think 20 dollars is a fine price, but for most people, I recommend nabbing it when it's on a little bit of a sale.

I used to think Sonic the Hedgehog 4 (Episode 1 in particular, anyway) was irredeemably awful with nothing to say positive about it. But going into it after a few years with an open mind, it's better than I remembered it being. I'll elaborate. And I'll start with the positives, imo ofc, because most of the reviews are super negative.

I think the best way to describe Sonic 4 is as "Sonic's New Super Mario Bros." I've seen some say this before, and it's pretty accurate. It's a 2.5D revival of the blue blur which implements aspects of Sonic's 3D moveset into a 2D setting, such as the air dash and the homing attack. Similarly, the NSMB games took Mario's wall, double, triple jumps, etc., and put them in a 2D setting. I enjoy Sonic 4 doing this, as it feels like an organic divergence from the direction all newer 2D Sonic games have taken, with their complete disregard for any "modern Sonic" mechanics merely for the sake of puritanistic adherence to classic Sonic tropes. The air dash is a fun way of building up speed in more open segments of the levels, and the homing attack, when used properly, can create fresh new ways to design 2D levels with different branching paths and the like. Especially in Episode 2, but Episode 1 doesn't necessarily do this poorly. Splash Hill is a standout in this regard. In general, the level design does a good job of letting players familiar with their layouts maintain speed, at least in my experience, and there's some pretty cool setpieces like in act 2 of the casino level where Sonic will occasionally along a deck of cards and pop out of the foreground while doing so, smoothly transitioning back into solid ground to continue running.

I also greatly appreciate the ability to retry stages a lá the modern games, as half of the fun of any remotely decent Sonic game is the replayability of stages. And in Sonic 4, it comes at zero cost to your lives count, no less! Proper classic Sonic games (1, CD, 2, 3&K) & nu-classic Sonic games (Mania, Superstars) forgo this feature, the former games because they came before the 3D games which implemented/normalized it and the latter games because a retry button isn't "classic" enough... ig? Kinda dumb reason to exclude a legitimately great quality of life feature that makes revisiting levels you wanna get better at much easier and much less inconvenient. This also connects to how, in those nu-classic games I mentioned before, even though you're able to select stages you want to go to in them, you're also forced to continue playing into the next one unless you actively choose to exit them through the pause menu. I know this is how all the older classic games do it, but that doesn't mean it's how the newer ones need to do it or that it's the better way of doing things. I vastly prefer Sonic 4's setup, as I'm able to just go in and play the levels I like, retry them as much as I like, and get out. If Mania had such a setup which allowed me to just play its new, unique zones individually, that would immediately make me reinstall that game, as it would be such a cool QoL feature to see put in. Alas, it never would've been and never will because, oh gods forbid, it's Sonic 4's setup... Oh well.

When it comes to Sonic 4's presentation, it's more of a mixed bag than it is outright horrible like some make it out. I'll cover the negatives of it right below, but, to speak some positives of the game's graphics, I really love the background of Splash Hill in this game. The level of detail on the clouds is pleasant, and the fact they actively scroll is a treat to the senses. The sunflowers all sway in the breeze as Sonic runs past which is an easy detail to miss if you're just sprinting through everything, which is likely to be the case in a Sonic game, obviously. The music's also part of the presentation, and while I have more negative to say about it than positive, the foundational melodies are at least some neat little earworms as you play the game.

And the biggest positive is the pricing. Half the price of Sonic Mania, a sixth the price of Sonic Superstars, you can do much worse for 10 bones (USD). It's also arguably longer than Sonic Forces and a fourth the price ffs. Price ain't an issue here, in my honest opinion.

Now... onto stuff most people will probably agree on.


First off, let me make this clear: this is still a Dimps Sonic game. Sometimes there's extremely annoying spike placement and bottomless pits, and while Episode 2 includes warning signs for when you're approaching a bottomless pit and that you'll need to be a bit more deliberate and precise in your platforming escapades, Episode 1 does not give you this courtesy even though it would've been an extremely simple matter to retroactively add such a minor thing to the game back when Sonic 4 and its episodes were somewhat relevant. One could say this makes these levels more satisfying to master, but that's just the Sonic Rush stan within me speaking. For most players, such obstacle placements will be off-putting.

And let's address the elephant in the room: Sonic 4's physics aren't one-to-one with the classic games proper. There are certainly some shared elements between the two such as loop jumps speeding the player up, jumping off of slopes providing much more height than usual, and maybe a couple other things that don't immediately come to mind, but by and large, it's different enough that people leaning moreso towards having a classic purist bent will be left unsatisfied, which is understandable. Personally, it satiates enough of the same desires as the classic games to do its job well, but I'm more than well aware that puts me in the minority. But for what it's worth, I think it's still better at emulating those classic games than, say, Classic Sonic in Generations. And that's a hill I'll die on. Like I said though, I'm the minority here. So keep it noted if you're going to buy the game.

And once again, i gotta talk about the music. Yeahhhh it's pretty whatever, honestly. Like I said before, I like the melodies, but they're wasted on such nothing instruments which try to copy the Genesis' lovable twang, but it just doesn't hit the same, it comes across as quite cheap. And speaking of cheap, I'm not the biggest fan of the plastic-y sheen that lathers pretty much every surface in the foreground, including Sonic himself. It doesn't look as bad as Heroes at least, but that's not a particularly high bar. So glad that Episode 2 improves upon this, and immensely at that.

And lastly, yeah, the game's gonna be too short for most people. That'll happen when you decide to release it episodically instead of like any normal damn game. I'm personally fine with it because I have ADHD and I'm more likely to complete a game if it's not so long it'll lose my attention, but again, that's prob not gonna be the case for most people. Sega, Sonic isn't Half-Life, quit smoking dope on the job.


Sonic 4 Episode 1 is fine, frankly. It can be fun a good, like, 70% of the time, to my experience. But it shouldn't have been called Sonic 4. That set it up for failure from the start. Calling itself that creates some extremely lofty expectations that, even for all the positives I've mentioned, it just can't meet. If it had instead been called something closer to like how New Super Mario Bros was, like, idk, Sonic the Hedgehog: Revival or Sonic Throwback, maybe its reception would've been a little less lukewarm on release and much less aggressively torn apart in retrospect. I'd say if you have a few bucks burning a hole in your pocket, don't wanna shell out full price for something frustrating and bland like Superstars but still want to satisfy your 2D Sonic fix, at least consider giving Sonic 4 Episode 1 a shot. And if nothing else, Episode 2 is right there as well.

Elder Scrolls: Arena is an extremely underrated game. This is the only game in the series that lets you trek throughout all of Tamriel, from Elsweyr to Hammerfell all the way to Black Marsh. If you can put your headspace back within the context of its release, Arena is grand and has admirable scope, even by modern standards. It's easily got the greatest dungeon-crawling in the series. More varied and less mindnumbing than Daggerfall, not boring interconnected corridors like Skyrim, it keeps things interesting, and there's a sheer abundance of different dungeons to explore if you just search for them. It might get repetitive for some, but this is offset for me by the charming artstyle and explorative atmosphere. As is obvious, game's completely free. Can't recommend it enough, especially at that price tag.

It's basically an interactive art piece, but one with a relevant message, a message that's depressingly realistic. Played on Steam Deck and can confirm it plays well, verification makes sense. Although, that said, performance in the Shroom Zone tends to chug like a alcoholic sailor on Deck, and there aren't any real graphics options for you to adjust. You can beat the game in just around 45 minutes first time thru if you're dilly-dallying, but it's free and has a great aesthetic, so why not add it to your library?

In the short time I've been playing this obscure little shooter from Russia, I'm pleasantly surprised by how fun it actually is. The premise of a game flipping the dumb "evil Russian" trope on its head and, quite frankly, realistically depicting American foreign policy in comparison to most jingoistic western military shooters, safe to say it conceptually enamored me, so I took the plunge. It's ended up becoming a favorite of mine, in spite of some of its issues. I'll elaborate.

The level design is a bit above that of other "Slavjank" games because pretty much nothing is reused. It's all unique from level to level, layout-wise anyway. Levels are fun to explore, because, if you're thorough, you can find weapons earlier than you're supposed to in secrets around each stage, and even weapon upgrades. It adds a great amount to the replayability factor, on top of the game's short length. The game is only around 2 hours or so your first time through. It makes it really easy to pick up, play, and breeze thru after an afternoon lunch. But as mentioned before, all of the levels are unique, unlike many other "Slavjank" titles that see fit to copy-paste rooms, whole hallways, it can get a little confusing. It doesn't get confusing here, however. I wouldn't say all killer since there are a couple of boring turret sections, the second one in particular being a bit drawn out, but definitely no filler.

Gameplay is faster paced than I thought it would be. Moving at a diagonal and bunnyhopping, you can go really fast. This is a product of jank, but one I'm thankful for. It makes zipping around the levels that much more fun. The fact that the game also didn't go the route of regenerating health or a two weapon limit like many other games were going in the direction of around the time, I greatly appreciate it. Patriot: DemocratiZation spreads out its weapons just enough to keep things fresh, introducing them where they'll be most useful, like the sniper rifle right before a big, open area with machine gunners posted really high up, for example. There's also some fun level setpieces, mostly involving changing the layout around you or hijacking vehicles to drive em into stuff. In one such setpiece, you drive a truck into an alleyway where it changes the level geometry so you can transition to the next level. Just a nifty attention to detail. Insert Marge Simpson holding a potato saying, "I just think they're neat" image here or something.

It is admittedly befitting of the term "Slavjank", as it is janky, mostly in the animation and AI departments with enemies. Enemies in this game can pretty much instantly turn on you and start firing, almost like they're cultists from the game "Blood." That said, if you aim for the head, they go down like a breeze, so it's not a huge issue. And the store page says the game came out in 2025, but that's obviously wrong, this game graced the world in 2006. For an FPS game from '06, it's not much of a looker, though there is a charm in its sorta "lo-fi" visuals. I obviously can't be too sure how big the budget was that they were working with, but it'd probably go a long way in explaining the length of the game as well as its graphics. Language barrier might be a dealbreaker for some, as pretty much all of the game is spoken in Russian, no subtitles except for mission objectives. Or, at least, inconsistently. Also, the game ends on a cliffhanger. So that's a bit lame. But it's whatever. I think it's safe to guess we won't be getting a sequel any time soon.

At the end of the day though, I just greatly admire what this game's trying to say about my own country's bad, aggressive tendencies abroad, how the American military trades human blood for oil and practically works at the behest of corporations, all while simultaneously not d*ckriding the military of the Russian Federation, seeing it as kleptocratic and corrupt. That's something not many military shooters manage, I find, so that's something that makes this game feel a little more special to me. On top of just being a genuinely fun little romp that's easy to and fun to replay. I recommend it, least if you can catch it on a discount.

Game is utterly busted. Have gotten softlocked at numerous points just for playing a tad too quickly, weapons almost universally suck a*s, quicksaves are broken, and the final level is absolute bullsh*t, infinitely spawning a bunch of damage sponge enemies in armor to spam the game's strongest weapons at you in an extremely open area where progression is unclear. It honestly gives me Hunt Down the Freeman flashbacks. That's besides the fact that tons of areas are copy-pasted throughout the game, making it dull as hell to navigate. Story and voice-acting are funny but not enough to make this a worthwhile experience. Not recommended at all. F*ck Neuro.