Recent reviews by Mode8fx

I love the idea of a game that teaches about musical notation, but it's just not executed well at all here. NoteCaptor's gameplay is just clicking the letter that corresponds to the note above each enemy. The visuals (in terms of effects, transitions, etc) are barebones and, ironically, the sound design is basically nonexistent. You'd think that clicking a note would play that note so you can subconsciously associate the sound of each note with its corresponding letter and placement, but no; an NPC even tells you "you'll be able to learn better if you sound out the notes as they show up" like the game knows that it's barely more helpful than just looking at sheet music. Also, there's no pause button, and pressing Escape closes the game for... some reason.

You may think "but you only played the game for seven minutes!" Out of curiosity, I looked up NoteCaptor gameplay on YouTube, and none of the videos last longer than eight minutes, like everyone realized "oh... that's all there is to it, huh" at the same time. I wanted to like this, but it's in dire need of some polish.

Before getting into the game itself, why the hell does a Steam game require an Epic Games account? There's absolutely no reason for it. And Denuvo is bad as always.

Moving on. The one big question on your mind is likely "Is this as good as Mania?" No. Not even close. It's not a bad game, but it has several major problems.

First, the level design is just not as good as the classic games (Genesis + Mania). It feels less cleverly designed overall and has fewer interesting new level mechanics, but the big problem is that the camera doesn't follow you as it should. There are many, many times throughout the game where you'll get hit by an obstacle that you have no chance of knowing is there. And I'm not talking about "you forgot to roll when going down a slope", I'm talking about problems the classic games didn't have like "the game tells you to use a certain ability to move yourself straight upward and when you do, the camera pushes you to the top of the screen where an enemy is just offscreen during the moment where you're literally unable to defend yourself without cancelling the ability in the exact spot where the game explicitly told you to use the ability". Vertical camera movement in particular just feels wrong and doesn't center on the player as much as it should, though horizontal movement also has its problems. Or how you get an ability that's supposed to slow time to slow down everything around you, but some specific things just... don't get slowed down, and you have to find that out on your own.

Or how a lot of the bosses have attacks with effects that you have no way of expecting unless you've seen them before. You can learn through repetition and then they're not so bad, but they lack the intuitive design of Mania's bosses. Speaking of which, the boss fights in Superstars drag on... and on... and on... and ON... Nearly every. Single. One. Even if you play perfectly, they just take too freaking long. They're designed like Mario bosses that have a lot of buildup to taking three hits, but a lot of them take the usual 6-8 hits. Even the ones that do take only three hits are a slog to get through. Not helped at all by the short, generic boss music. But I'll get to that later.

A minor issue about the special stages: You're supposed to be able to latch onto nearby objects to swing your way to the emerald, but the triggers feel random. Sometimes I can grab something that looks way too far away, and other times I can't grab something that's right next to me. It feels like whether you can grab an object depends on its proximity to the camera. Not the player, the camera.

Finally, the music... "mixed bag" doesn't even begin to describe it. Some of the music is amazing and may even be around Mania quality. It makes sense; Tee Lopes worked on it. A lot of the music is good but not great. And then there's Jun Senoue. Please Sega, do NOT let this man near a synthesizer, he can't make Genesis-style music to save his life. If you told me half of this game's music was Sonic 4 Episode 3's unused OST, I'd believe you. Unfortunately, that includes very common songs like boss and menu themes, so you'll be hearing "okay" music much more often than great music.

Really, the whole game feels like a mixed bag. Some parts of it are classic Sonic quality, while others are pretty forgettable. Get it at a discount.

(Oh, and I haven't played the battle mode much, but it's fun. But spraypaints are consumable? Are you kidding me?!)

♥♥♥♥ Nicalis for screwing Pixel out of his own IP and wrongfully taking down CSE2, a decompilation of the original freeware Cave Story, because they were jealous that it was better than Cave Story+.

Also this game is okay I guess, a good enough free time-waster.

A simple but fun Space Invaders clone. The lack of controller support is jarring (not to mention lazy), but thankfully I could easily make/upload my own controller config, so don't worry about the lack of "official" support.

$5 may be pushing it, but it's well worth it if you can get it on sale (I got it for 50 cents).

Long loading times, and the most powerful characters are locked behind pay-to-win DLC.

As a big fan of the first three Paper Mario games (especially TTYD), Bug Fables was everything I could hope for. You even have the option of changing the button prompts to match a Gamecube controller; that's how dedicated the devs were to making the Paper Mario game that fans want. 10/10, a must buy for Paper Mario fans, without a doubt.

Always-online DRM, a softlock in the first area of the game (before you even get a chance to save, so you have to re-watch the unskippable opening), major sound issues where all audio permanently cuts out until you reinstall the game, and my save file deleted itself even though I backed up the Documents folder where it's supposedly located. An embarrassing port.

The visuals are nice, and the use of piano to emphasize player actions enhances the already soothing sound in a subtle but powerful way. With intuitive level design, a steady introduction of new mechanics, and a strong gameplay emphasis on "show, don't tell", SiNKR is a charming puzzle game that's well worth the low price.

(I first played this at SIEGE, by the way.)

Try adding controller support.