Recent reviews by OutOfCharacters

I'm enjoying this game a lot. Trying to win as each of the different starting mice is a fun challenge, especially with some of the weaker items. I like the mechanic of time only moving when you do, since it makes it easy to think through your routing and not get punished for a decision you don't have time to consider. I like all the variation with the various upgrades, and I like the rate at which they unlock. The music is really good, and I like the maze layouts other than the racetrack. There isn't a ton of enemy variation, but I think each of the two enemies fills a purpose and you don't really need more.

There are a couple of small gripes I have. Not every unlock is balanced against the others, and that's fine, but some feel so awful to pick up. I also wish it wouldn't force you to pick up a new item mid run. There are times when it offers you 3 new items, and those times can irrecoverably mess up your build if you are forced to permanently forego something like the ability to heal your mouse. An option to skip an item pickup after you are presented with options might also fix this?

The bosses are pretty cheesable, since if you don't pick up any large xp orbs, it won't spawn any new cats to chase you. If you kill all the cats chasing you, you are left with just you and the bosses which you can kite forever by just going back and forth through the pacman doors on the left and right side of the screen.

I have mostly positive opinions on the game, with a nitpick to get out of the way first.

This game uses a trained AI for it's voice acting. Unless the voice actors have been given royalties whenever their voice is used on par to a paycheck, this is a terrible practice for the industry. The voice acting sounds worse, and the game doesn't do anything interesting with the use of AI, like adding individual player names dynamically into line reads. It seems to only be used for cost cutting and convenience. I really hope the company changes this practice, or publicizes how the VAs have been compensated to put my mind at ease.

There's a lot to like in this game. Between the three classes, there's tons of customization within loadouts and cosmetics. This degree of flexibility was one of the things I liked the most in Team Fortress 2; you really can find a style that is your own, and there are tons of things to try. At high levels, the viability of these options shrink drastically, but this is not always a problem when playing casually with friends.

Though the game obviously has balance issues, patches are frequent and the developers have shown commitment to addressing balance issues in a timely manner. Already, there have been huge nerfs to common one-shot combos, like "nukes" on heavy and stun + shotgun + invisibility on light. Though there have been mistakes, I think the frequency of the changes means that the game will course correct out of frustrating metagames that other PvP games might take longer to address. The developers have responded quickly to most features that have elicited outcry so far, and I hope they continue to do so.

The destructible environments are endlessly entertaining, and make each match different from the last. Blowing holes in different walls always changes how a fight can be approached, and the maps are littered with items to help do this even if you don't bring something for it on your loadout. It feels like many weapons, items, and abilities lend themselves to a very high skill ceiling; it's been very cool to see the variety of ways players have been able to use them, which I think is often a byproduct of how sandboxy the game is.

I've had a lot of fun in the last 100 or so days with this game. Around half of my playtime has been in the practice range trying things out, but I think that could just be a testament to how engaging the engine is by itself.

the credits were longer than the final boss battle

Over the last year, I've had quite a bit of fun playing Master Duel. It's legitimately a very good simulator; it captures Yu-Gi-Oh very well, making the game way more intuitive to new players than playing in paper. Animations and the chain link UI make concepts that might seem confusing much easier to pick up on for spectators.

I have some reservations about the game's choices for formats, though. I hate Maxx "C", and would like to play on a banlist more familiar to me as a TCG player that has it banned. The game only allows best of 1 matches; best of 3 is much more competitive, and in Master Duel there are no good cards that answer opposing combo decks and opposing control decks. You kind of have to pick your poison; do you want to be really prepared for the meta, or less prepared for the meta but sometimes able to beat Skill Drain going second? If the game is to be kept best of 1, cards like Skill Drain (there are many more; Artifact Scythe, There Can Be Only One, Rivalry, Gozen) that counter many deck's outs to them need to be removed, so that you can avoid playing non-games with little interaction once Skill Drain resolves.

between issues with bots flooding lobbies and playing garbage on voice coms, to random crits, this game just doesn't seem worth playing at times. super fun otherwise, the glaring issues that continue to not be addressed in any significant way makes playing a session of this often a miserable experience despite its arguably deserved popularity.

probably the most heartfelt and well written game I've ever played. you should play it.

Luminous plume is very fun. I haven't played any of the "tales" games before, but Luminous plume offers a fun and engaging combat system with a large skill cap and a large amount of depth and variety. I've enjoyed going through the various options and learning how to optimally use systems in order to overcome tough opponents, which the game has in spades. I would recommend it to other people looking for this sort of thing.