Recent reviews by Pawkt

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You’ve played Disco Elysium. Maybe you loved it, maybe it left you frustrated, but we can all agree it was one of a kind, ingenious, though highly political and dense with internal banter that didn’t always blend together because the character was a complete idiot in the worst way.

Enter Esoteric Ebb. My god, it’s 10x the game Disco Elysium was. The political conflict actually makes sense, even if you’re not invested in those topics. There’s Dungeons & Dragons-style progression, world-building, combat, stat checks, secrets, familiars, magic, and gods, all crafted by a solo developer (with help on art and music, but still, mostly solo). I laughed, I cried laughing, and I felt a real connection to each character, especially Snell. Bravo! It’s so well written, with countless paths to choose from. Best of all? You’re fully in control. It’s not linear; you have five days to solve the mystery of the Tea House explosion. The twist: you can approach it from any angle. You could literally stumble upon the solution without being told what to do and just show up like, "Hey, I solved the mystery. Later!" without having ever even been told to do so, all alone for the most part. That level of depth is wild.

If you’ve been craving Disco Elysium-style storytelling, but want something more cohesive, this is it. Esoteric Ebb delivers comedy, thrills, and immersion in the style of a D&D campaign, DM’d just for you. There’s barely any hand-holding, you’re on a time limit, and there are plenty of ways to approach every situation, with loads of secrets and over 20 hours of content (less if you skip missable quests and interactions). I did find that the ending I got was a bit anticlimactic, leaving much to the player’s interpretation, but overall, this is a fantastic title.

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Video Review TBD

I will update this review once I sit down to finish it properly and put together a full review video, but blunt and simple: this is Pokémon as a rhythm game, with ridiculously well-orchestrated dance choreography mechs and a diverse soundtrack full of licensed bangers. While repetitive, in dance moves, it's got a lot of diversity and each replay of the same song has a different pattern!? Yes please!

I did have some reservations, mostly because there is a lot going on at once. You have bottom-left, bottom-right, and center prompts, powers, counters, combo effects, very hard difficulty settings, tricky mech handling, and more to keep track of. It can ruin the vibe when you fail due to a lockout, especially while piloting the drone mech which is high difficulty, but I am still raring to go. It is amazing so far. First Pilot (gym leader) down, three more to go, and then I will on my way to becoming the very best.

Haha.

If rhythm games are your thing, this is an easy recommendation. If you like mecha, it is even better, with the basic modifications and suits. The fusion of choreography-driven combat and licensed tracks gives every match a sense of spectacle that most rhythm titles never reach. It can feel busy at times and the learning curve is real, but once it clicks, it all becomes part of the charm. It already feels like something special, and I am excited to dive deeper and see how wild the later pilots and tracks get.

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I have played the original Epic Games release for over 12 hours while writing a side review for a website. The game was fine. Not bad, not great. The problem is what it became as a LIVE SERVICE game. You know, the game you don't own, and can't play when the servers die?

This is an online only game that is effectively dead. What you are playing right now is a one hour demo. When it fully launches on Steam, the experience will still be mostly waiting around for people for over and hour to make any remote progression in this (33), (22) and (11) player game, dependant on if you have the players to farm the (33) mode to unlock the keys for (22) and then the keys for (11), if they even unlocked that mode, been some time, it was still in Early Access when I last played through it, with so much promise of this and that, but the wait was insufferable.

You need a minimum of nine players to progress, with three players paired per elite stage before the final boss, you can not play alone, it's physically impossible. To play it properly, you need multiple players and groups. On a good day, you might find eight to ten, with mixed connections across Chinese servers, Xbox, Epic, and Steam. It ends up feeling like Towerborne in all the wrong ways, despite how it plays.

This game is and will still be dead in the water when it launches on Steam. Do not waste your time or money on the full release or really any other platform for that matter, or do.

Even if you did, there was and still is never enough content to keep people coming back daily for more than a few days or a week, which is what causes repetitive loops of gameplay.

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This is coming from someone that does not care about the community hype. I look at games and review them for what they are, not for your favorite streamer, memes, or personalities, unlike many people. The Binding of Isaac was great and still is. It has massive replay value but let's not focus on past work, let's focus on the here an now.

Do you know what was not fun on release? The Legend of Bum-Bo. Pure RNG. That is why it had such a negative reception on release, until it was somewhat balanced out and fixed. Do you know what happen then? It balanced out, got back into the positives. This is because it led to either really good or really bad runs with little player control, which is a problem.

Mewgenics is everything but a fair game. The mechanics are solid, but the humour is not, as it's highly questionable. It feels like raunchy 4chan-style perversion. You could argue that is the point since it is a McMillen game and the community is into that kind of stuff. But to have them rebuttle your critiscism because it's not intellectually backed by some form of deep explaination is very silly, but fitting the personality one would associate with being infatuated with this style of vulgarity. Isaac crawling through his mother’s womb on his messed up abusive journey was at least wrapped in good challenge, and meaningful builds. Not making an overly lame bend over so _ can take it in the ass, or spread yours wide open. Okay, Gay Neighbour and Mr Theif.

So when it comes to Mewgenics, what do you actually get?

1: Some random cats.

2: One Random Cats leveling up after combat and getting random skills sometimes not in their style.

3: You breed them and hope RNG gives you a decent carryover. Since you cannot keep using older versions, as they are forced to retire and be used to donate for more content or unlocks.
That doesn't sound too bad, until you donate the first one and it's like, oh. You want like 25 cats donated? Go ♥♥♥♥ yourself. Enjoy the grind if you want that perfection, without being able to keep your bloodline going when you fail to roll a good fusion of next generation felines to take their place.

4: The stages are an eyesore. Too much debris, poor contrast, and enemies blend into the background and so does the terrain threats. The humour is just nonstop raunch, poop, gay sex, spreading-your-ass jokes, and cat abuse. It feels like childish early 2000s shock humour that only lands if you are immature or broken in the head, which let's face it, most here are.

5: Early stages were decent, then suddenly on stage 3 a 100 HP boss that teleports to minions unless stunned appeared, so if you did not roll stun as an upgrade or have a cat with it already, you get a dragged-out elite fight for no reason other than “lol unlucky. Womp Womp.”

6: The first boss wiped my whole party with a bomb before I could even take a turn and respond. Unless you rolled high agility on everyone or fused enough, there was no counterplay. It was not challenging in a strategic way. It was boring, slow, and bogged down as you sit there watching yourself fail because you couldn't do anything.

Yeah, I didn't play for long, because I saw enough, I know for a fact the later stages of the game would be even more horrendously unfair, it's not rocket science, that's how these strategy turn based games work, wise guy.

Mewgenics feels like the worst parts of Edmund McMillen’s design philosophy that does very little but drag the rest of an otherwise brilliant game downwards. This is not a misunderstood masterpiece buried under controversy. It is a bloated RNG grind wrapped in shock humour and defended by a fanbase that treats the developer like a personality cult, as many other cult like communities do be that Deltarune, Pshychopomp, Homestuck, you get the gist.

The cameo dramas and constant discourse around McMillen only highlights more of these problems. It's hard to judge a game like this on their design, when there are so many different personalities attached to them. So genuine criticism about the game itself gets drowned out by memes, parasocial loyalty, and people who think edgy jokes is interesting.

Isaac earned its reputation through mechanics, balance, and depth. Mewgenics feels like it is coasting on a name, an aesthetic, and a community that will defend anything McMillian touches, which isn't the case, thankfully as more genuine feedback breaks through. The design is sloppy, the humour is bland, and the RNG-heavy progression actively disrespects the player’s time. If you were hoping at the current moment for a fantastic successor for a series like Final Fantasy Tactics with a crazy and dark coat of paint, it's not there yet, far from it.
If this came from a no-name indie dev, it would be ripped apart. Instead, it gets a pass because it is McMillen.

That alone says enough. Perhaps in a few months or a year when and if he decides to tone down the randomness to let players enjoy the game without the unfavorable feel, I could see myself returning, but man was this such a let down. If you do pick it up, I would recommend turning on the filter.

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Video Review
https://youtu.be/gT6nUiCsrV0
I was recommended this game after covering AERO GPX and looking for another fast-paced title that works well in short sessions. XF: Extreme Formula was what was mentioned, so I bit the bullet, picked it up and gave it a chance.

The first issue is progression. Being forced through Gran Turismo-style proving grounds tutorials just to unlock vehicles, or needing a top-three finish to access content, feels unnecessary. The movement system is also overloaded. You are expected to learn strafing, strafe braking, and constant button inputs to maintain speed and control, which ends up feeling more like a complex flight sim than an arcade racer. (That's an exagguration)

The game tries to juggle speed, story, tutorials, unlocks, and slow-paced segments all at once, which hurts its identity as an anti-gravity racer. This should be about aggressive, arcade-style racing. Instead, there is no combat and the AI does not apply meaningful pressure. Some low-gravity space stages actively discourage movement because boosters drain oxygen, so it's disabled, leading to moments where the optimal strategy is to not move left or right. This design choice kills momentum and makes the experience feel dull rather than intense outside of the initial surge of goosebumps and shivers breaking the sound barrier was able to push onto me, the player.

Overall, it feels overly complicated for a game that should prioritize speed and immediacy.


Perhaps future Early Access updates will add meaningful content and refinement, because mechanically the game can feel good when everything aligns. The problem is that it is trying to do too much at once. What about basic acceleration why does the game constantly oscillate between fast and slow for the sake of turns or if you get bumped or rammed by another vehicle, just turn it into a drifting mechanic and suddenly you're back in business.

I ultimately refunded it. That is unfortunate, because I wanted to spend more time with it, but it simply was not clicking. It was clear early on that it was not going to deliver the kind of experience I was looking for, it is certainly better than most, but no where near where it could be.

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Video Review
https://youtu.be/nCjdVraEugE

Super Chipflake was a blast to play through, both for myself and for everyone following along. Going in without any nostalgia for YouTube, I was genuinely surprised by how well the game held my attention over multiple hours, to the point in where I pushed all the way to 100 percent completion, despite there being no achievements or trading cards to chase after currently. That is usually the clearest sign a game is doing something right. When you feel mentally invested in exploring every nook and crany of its world just to see it through to the end, not for some side achivement. This is the type of motivation that clearly speaks for itself.

Super Chipflake pulls heavily from everything great about the 90s, and it does not hide it or seem to lean on the popularity of it's Youtube success too much, as it genuinely tries to entertain you with the gameplay itself.

Banjo-Kazooie, Pokemon, The Legend of Zelda, Donkey Kong Country, and plenty of others are worn proudly as inspiration. The sass, humor, adventure, exploration, silliness, and sense of discovery are all baked directly into the world on your quest to help collect the ingrediants needed so you can eat the tasty Schnitzel. The characters, platforming, and especially the music blend together perfectly. While the main theme can wear a little thin over long sessions, the overall sound design still plays a major role in selling a world that feels very playful, and easy to get lost in for multiple hours at a time.


While I found the game to be a perfect bite-sized world to dive into, I approached it with my usual let’s try to break it mindset, actively looking for bugs or locks that could ruin someone’s playthrough, if they stumbled into them. A few did show up, which is not especially surprising given this was built in a short timeframe by a very small but clearly talented team out of Germany.

The most notable problems came in the form of soft locks. Interacting with the pizza delivery NPC after completing the task could freeze the game. On its own, that is not a major issue since a quick reset solves it. The real problem is what happens afterward. If you quit out, you lose all collected materials, including vinyl records, which are the only resources that truly matter. Loading back in empty-handed means having to re-collect everything, which becomes especially frustrating if you play the way I do and get heavily sidetracked.

To be clear, the constant distractions are not a flaw. In fact, they are one of the game’s strengths. Every time I discovered something new, I immediately veered off course, forgetting the original task entirely. That sense of being pulled in different directions is exactly what a good adventure game should do. The issue is that losing progress due to a soft lock makes that otherwise strong design feel punishing, if you happen to run into those issues, which is unlikely, but I do feel like it might upset some players when they have to re-obtain the lost materials, to me I feel like it didn't do too much damage, but would be a nice quality of life feature to just save the players inventory if you do happen to crash out.

Beyond the soft locks, I also ran into a few visual bugs tied to mini-quests after crashes. Some quests appeared as incomplete even though they were already finished, still showing their stickers filled in. It does not break the game, but it can create confusion for anyone trying to 100 percent the sticker book.

Finally, this is less of a flaw and more of a minor gripe. The game can take a bit to fully open up until you unlock the Naruto run and max out your movement speed. Before that, you are moving through the world at a much slower pace. Once you get the ability, though, everything clicks. You are zooming across the map, getting launched through the environment, and the game immediately feels more fluid.

There is still plenty to explore early on, so it never feels like you are wandering aimlessly. You always have something to do. That said, it is worth prioritizing getting to town and unlocking that run ability early, as it is the point where the game truly comes alive.

I genuinely did not know this game existed. I do not follow Chipflake and have only seen their work in passing over the years, largely because YouTube never really recommends their content to me. I first noticed the game through a publisher or informational email and initially assumed it was a Nintendo Switch exclusive. That assumption was quickly corrected when someone I know practically shoved me aside and insisted I play it on Steam. So I dropped everything else I had planned and committed to playing it properly, partly out of curiosity and partly out of obligation.

I was not disappointed. This ended up being one of the best adventure games I have played in quite some time. Even without any familiarity with Chipflake, the heavy inspiration from classic 90s games and the constant character references never felt alienating. Instead, it felt rewarding. Every time I ran into a new character, I found myself pointing at the screen and blurting out "THAT’S __" as the realization clicked. That constant sense of recognition and discovery made the experience incredibly satisfying.

Even after technically reaching 100 percent completion, there are still a few things I missed while trying to access the secret locked room, which means I will absolutely be returning to it when I can. If you have been on the fence about whether this game is worth your time, the answer is an easy yes. When it comes to exploration-driven adventure games, this is one of the best you are likely to play.

A side note: There seems to be plans on future updates and content if the game does well with sales, so by all means, recommend it to friends, show it around, get the word out. Please :3

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Video Review
https://youtu.be/g5znFkTMRzY

This is a rough recommendation.

On one hand, I really liked the demo. There was something compelling about it, likely the strong poetry in the original trailer, paired with the fact that the demo did not fully expose how poorly tuned the gameplay loop actually is. The RNG did not feel unbearable early on, and the game did not demand enough time to reveal its deeper problems.

With deckbuilding roguelikes, progression is everything. You play, you fail, you win, you lose, and gradually you become stronger. This game does not work that way. You are always weak. You never feel powerful. And if you do manage to get strong, it comes with an asterisk. You must already know which encounters to avoid or you die anyway.

You would never take a massive AoE build into a multi enemy fight like the bird and his trash mobs, since you end up empowering and enraging him to absurd levels, leading to massive damage against your pitiful 10 out of 10 life pool. On the flip side, bringing a single target build into encounters that spawn barricades and rocks that take no damage is just as bad. Those fights demand specific pull mechanics to drag the main target forward, and if you do not have them, the run is over. It is not challenging in a thoughtful way. It is just annoying.

The body mutation system is another missed opportunity. There is so much potential here that the game barely taps into. Imagine something like trypophobia as a skin condition, attracting flies and maggots that you could then control, turning the virus itself into a summoner style build. That kind of visual and mechanical depth would add real identity to the system. Instead, it feels shallow and underdeveloped.

Because the game is in Early Access, a lot of what appears in trailers and screenshots does not line up with the current experience. The virus placement mini game often shows four or more virus blocks empowering the player before moving to the next area, yet in actual gameplay, you are lucky to access four total, not counting the clearly pre placed ones shown in promotional material. It comes across as misleading.

Outside of the novelty of the patent expiring and the ability to metaphorically stick it to Disney by mutilating an icon like Winnie the Pooh and friends, there simply is not enough substance here to justify picking it up.

You are set up to fail repeatedly because the game actively resists letting you form a real build. Bleed plus sustain works, and there are likely others, but the odds of finding the right pieces when you actually need them are incredibly slim. If you fail to increase block size or brain size, you lose potential rotations and die. Bad starting hand pull. Dead. Poor healing or max HP rolls because the virus map screwed you. Tough luck.

What makes it worse is the realization that once you finally win, there is nothing waiting for you. Four hours of failure leads to a single success, followed by the game saying, nice, do it again, but now with an even worse build to unlock slightly different builds. You repeat the same fights, in the same linear order, with no meaningful evolution.

It is frustrating because the foundation shows promise, but the current experience feels hollow, punishing, and ultimately unrewarding.

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It's basically Balatro + Cross Word puzzles, very intense, specially for someone that can't really spell that well past 4-5 count. Gets much harder the longer you go through each stage and boss fights, gotta tailor your deck around the builds that work together, just like any other deck builder.

Also... Hey developer, you might want to change your banner for the games library capsule. It's litterally housing the N word with a hard R. Which is kind of unfortunate. (Thanks for changing it!)

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Valkyrie piqued my interest because of games like Pseudoregalia and smaller experimental projects like Tackle Box. I expected a decent open world experience with exploration, combat, NPC interactions, quests and things to battle and fight alongside the jumping and platforming, and a sense of direction. You know the deal.

Even after roughly an hour of play, none of that came together. The game feels largely non-directive, not in a deliberate or mysterious way, but because it simply does not explain itself well. Dialogue text is cramped to the point where letters visibly squish together, making it harder to read than it should be. On top of that, NPCs and signs are repeated constantly, be that poorly or clearly, all saying the same thing, something like...

"Yo! Jump, attack a wall and jump again!"
"I’m stuck on an island! Press ESC and respawn to save yourself! I’ll stay here for eternity."

Design-wise, everything feels aggressively rough. Nearly all geometry is made up of triangles and spikes, with holes punched into walls for no clear reason, filled with little tear monsters that only drop sustain. The world does not feel cohesive. Large chunks float without logic, and caves rely on flat JPG textures slapped under the map to fake water. It does not sell the illusion of a world.

The overall presentation feels extremely budget, to the point where it barely feels like a finished game. More than anything, it comes off as a prototype or a concept rather than a fully realized experience. The PS1 visuals are neat at first, but that novelty wears off fairly quickly.

I could see myself sitting down and playing it more, collecting additional orbs and slowly unlocking progression to climb the spire in the center of the map, but there is no real drive pushing me to do that. There is no hook, no momentum, even if mobility does feel nice as others mentioned, there just isn't a sense of purpose beyond simply liking nostalgia-driven visuals and classic games. Without that spark, it'll never give me a reason to stick around.

I am not saying that I hated the game, it just did not make much sense. The open world is vast but mostly barren, with vastly inconsistent designs like massive houses with massive doors and nothing inside, compared to a tiny barn or house with much more fitting scales followed by long stretches of nothing to do until you happen to stumble into the right place or the right NPC. The UI does not help either. The font is thin, lacks impact, and is not particularly readable, which only adds to the disconnect of just flying around wondering what there is to enjoy.

Overall, it just needs a lot more work to feel alive. Right now, it feels empty, unfocused, and undercooked, even if there is the foundation of something interesting underneath, it hasn't been fully realized.

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Video Review
https://youtu.be/7yusEkJz6a4

Metroidvanias are rarely an instant sell for me. It takes a lot for one to truly grab my attention, both physically and emotionally. Between demanding boss encounters, unforgiving platforming, and the expectation of heavy backtracking, it is a genre I have always found difficult to fully embrace, regardless of how celebrated it may be across reviews and recommendations. That said, when one does manage to pull me in, it usually means it is doing something genuinely special, that isn't found very often.

MIO is one of those rare cases.

Despite my general distance from the genre, I found myself emotionally invested, hooked, and deeply moved. The last Metroidvania to leave a similar impression was Animal Well, which should give some context. This is not my favorite genre, but when it works, it really works.

What sets MIO apart is its exploration driven, cel shaded world, paired with a strong narrative and excellent boss fight music, while the rest of game remains heavily queit or ambient. There is a lot to appreciate here, and once the game finds its footing, it shines. The most common criticism you will hear, and rightly so, is the pacing. The first two hours function as a long, drawn-out tutorial, withholding many of the core traversal and movement abilities. Until those systems open up, the experience can feel slow and restrictive. Once past that initial hurdle, the game finally lets you play on its own terms, and the difference is night and day.

MIO features multiple endings, encouraging repeat playthroughs to uncover the full story. Reaching the true ending can take upwards of 20 hours. The narrative is emotional and layered, with plenty of room to experiment through combat abilities and builds. Boss fights are both weak and challenging, often relying on learning mechanics, phases, and patterns rather than brute forcing it, since you have to play perfectly, it's got a weird stationary dodge system and very few ways to keep yourself healed.

Platforming can be frustrating. Some precision-based encounters feel questionable, particularly when enemies collide with hazards in ways that block progress unless you have already memorized the section. The Sawlong encounter is a good example of this. Backtracking also becomes tedious due to unskippable elevator rides that repeat frequently, even when attempting to bypass them by jumping down their shafts. The lack of fast travel options to certain lower Lab areas only adds to that friction when you're forced to ride them out.

There are also several missable systems and upgrades. For example, Mel, the upgrader, disappears halfway through the game and takes a significant amount of time to restore. Sitting on resources for too long can come back to haunt you, so it is worth engaging with upgrades early rather than hoarding materials until later.

MIO is a genuinely strong game. As someone who often passes on Metroidvanias because they tend to blur together or feel overpraised by genre diehards, this one stands out through its atmosphere, emotional weight, and sense of purpose. It explores themes of love, perseverance, and holding onto dreams within a decaying world aboard a derelict space station at the edge of the universe.

It is not without flaws, particularly in its pacing, traversal design, and the frequent forced permanent HP loss events. That said, these issues are largely mitigated through upgrades and smart preparation, outside of the terrible platforming sections with zero checkpoints, which genuinely pissed me off.

By the late game you may still find yourself scraping by on two or three health out of nine you have, which can be frustrating at times. Despite this, it is absolutely worth pushing through the opening hours. If a Metroidvania is ever going to change your mind about the genre, this might be the one.

Once again, to end on an informative note, here’s why the game has drawn so many negative reviews.

Traversal fatigue
The game relies heavily on walking and forced traversal. Fast travel exists, but not to the bottom lab levels. These areas are separated, meaning you are stuck riding elevators for roughly 40 seconds at a time, repeated dozens of times. It quickly becomes tedious and immersion-breaking as you run off to do something while you wait.

Platforming issues
Precision is not the problem. Analog control is. Holding down on the stick prevents jumping entirely. Holding right often triggers a dash slash instead. To pogo jump, you must jump first, then aim the analog downward mid-air. This control flow is unintuitive and easy to mess up, especially during repeated platforming sections of varying elevations.

Skipping
The opening acts as a 2 to 3 hour tutorial. You have no real skills and spend most of that time walking. The game does not meaningfully open up until nearly everything is unlocked, which is a tough sell for many players. Loading after death, watching a boss cutscene, you can't skip things. But, oh would you look at that. You can skip the credits!

Sound design imbalance The ambient choir (“Ahh Ahh Ahh Ahh AHHHH”) dominates the atmosphere. Boss fight music is strong, but outside of that, large portions of the game feel like a walking simulator with little to no music. Elevator rides, in particular, are long stretches of silence, which only amplifies the pacing issues.

What ultimately keeps you going is the motivation to save the space station. If you frame it as being deep in space, isolated and surrounded by nothing, the emptiness makes sense thematically. That sense of solitude can be immersive and help sell its story. It can also be deeply annoying, depending on the player.