Recent reviews by Rex

Sonic Team has a winning formula here. Great game. They can do a lot better.

Pros:

-Most character development to have ever exist in a Sonic game.
-"Open Zone" sandbox gives a ton of freedom to tackle things how you want to. Game doesn't hold your hand past the first 30 minutes.
-Killer sound track.
-Combat is simple and flashy, but engaging. Isn't a one button masher had depth that can be expolored with the skill tree. Skill tree even has an optional auto 1 button mode.
-Boss fights did DragonBall better than DragonBall.
-First Sonic Team game to have proper voice direction.
-Fishing mini game is both relaxing and a nice break from the action. It still benefits the overall game progression by playing.
-Ability to fine tune how Sonic moves by editing the turn radius, max speed, etc.
-If game ending is anything to go by, I'm looking forward to each character's development in the next Sonic title.


Cons:
-Character animation lacks emotion. The animators hold back with not animating something as fundamental as the characters' eyebrows to display emotion. They opt in on using the eye lids, which doesn't give off the same effect.
-Cyberspace levels are mixed to bad. Taking past level layouts is a neat idea, absolutely. But the idea falls flat when the Sonic game made with those levels didn't have Frontiers in mind. Expect to either run into a lot of walls or fall off on levels based on Sonic Unleashed / Generations. Stages based on anything SA2 or older work like a dream. Sonic is also pretty slow exclusively in Cyberspace and while in Cyberspace, his in air control is dismal to the point where it rivals Little Mac from Smash Bros.
-Floating platforms that contain obstacle courses and mini adventures feel like an after thought or a fan project. Sometimes, they look unnatural with their surrounding environment.

Spoiler warning:
-4th island isn't an island so much as its a set of obstacle courses required for the story. There's no collectibles in it. Once you pass it in the story, there's no incentive to go back.


Now for the meat and potatoes. Is this game a good PC port...?

No.
It's missing some PC centric features:
-Missing HDR support.
-No native ultrawide support.
-Render resolution can only go down in incriments of 25%.
-Game has a hard cap of 60fps.
30fps for curscenes.

It is optimized well in the sense I was able to have a true, locked 4k@60fps on a 2080Ti.

I had a ball, and this is a wonderful step in the right direction.

If I could change anything from this game from my cons list, it would be just the cutscene animations to push more emotion in each of the characters actions.

From the shaky and dead Icons: Combat Arena, comes this absolute beautiful boy, Rushdown Revolt.

The premise is simple. It's almost a Smash Bros clone, that has it's own identity now.

The mechanics are simple. Any move you land on someone will grand you a "Spark". A Spark allows you to cancel most moves, into anything you want. The combo potential is endless with this mechanic. It also allows for super jump and can also be used as an extra jump by means of air dodging.

Instead of the virgin Smash %, Rushdown Revolt went back to the drawing board and gave us a health bar. The gameplay still functions like Smash's %, but once your health is gone, your opponent will need to land 3 hits to do you in. That is, if you don't fall off.

Characters could use work. Some are carbon copies from Smash and could use their own animation. Specifically the Marth clone.

I've spent an hour beating up COM characters, and I'm having an absolute blast.

Haven't tried Online yet, but as soon as I can get one of my friends to play with me, I'll update this review.

Good job, Vortex Games! You took something dull and turned it into my new favorite fighting game!

Game is absolute blast.

I'm a huge fan of Phoenix Wright: AA and Danganrompa. Both those series hold a special place in my heart and it was Phoenix Wright (more specifically, A pony, Ace Attorney fan project) that got me hyped on visual novels in the first place.

Ai: The Somnium Files features a wide cast of 25+ entertaining characters that add to the story in their own way. It's filled to the brim with anime centered humor and gags.

The story has the main character, Kamade Date (Dah-tae, I know. The spelling's weird.) as he is in charge of investigating a series of murders that all have one connection to them, which leads to many interactions that Date has with the many characters that can lead you through different and branching story lines. The game features more than five different endings to the story, all of which are important to the broader story and will help the player understand the real, canon ending all the better.

This is 2 games split into one.
On one hand, you have a point and click visual novel, similar to Phoenix Wright, Danganrompa and the like.
The other, you're in what the game calls a "Somnium", hence the name.

In a Somnium, you control your Ai avatar around a dream of a person involved in the case file to uncover secrets that they're not willing to tell you. The game has several of these and this is how the game reaches its branching storylines. Most Somniums have two alternative ways in which to end it, which allow the player to experience the branching story that the game delivers.

The mechanics in the Somnium are as follows.
Think SUPERHOT, if it was a puzzle game.

So the picture painted is, time only moves when you do, so you can decide on your actions in the Somnium on your own pace. That being said, you have to interact with elements in the Somnium to continue the puzzle. Every interaction cost time and you only have 360 seconds total in a Somnium, as what the game refers to as "Mental Locks". Mental Locks progress the story in the Somnium as puzzles that you have to solve. They can be a range of many things from retracing steps from the subject or by getting into their heads of understanding.

Also Minecraft references.
A lot of Minecraft references.

This is the best game ever created that I can't recommend to new players due to the new player unfriendliness from the game, high cost of entry, all but dev abandoned PvP, and removal of content. The community would be happy to explain everything in detail about the game, what activities to do, what new players can do. But the game itself leaves you to your own devices after the "New Light" quest line.

You're essentially given the keys to Disney World without a guide as to what to do next. While this game is filled to the brim with content, which is a good thing, it comes at a cost two fold to the live game.

The cost of entry is too high for a new player to even consider buying in.
Some content was removed.

If you take a scroll up and look at the cost for all DLC within the Steam Page in USD it costs $564.86. Which is the exact same cost for a new graphics card in 2024. This cost should rightfully scare off any player. Buying the DLC from Steam would land you and a hole for a lot of funds. The only DLC's a player would need to have is the current year's DLC and the Legacy Collection (2023). The other DLCs are optional at best and can be found for cheaper elsewhere. Even ignoring the rest of the DLCs, the cost of entry of this game still is over $100 when purchasing the mentioned packs when not on sale. And even if you purchase those packs, you still do not have access to the Dungeons (1-3 player raids) unless you purchase them separately for $10 or buy the "Annual Pass" version of the current year DLC, which itself goes for $100 alone. Some months ago, Humble Bundle was doing a sale for all of the Destiny 2 DLCs for $20. Which is the best way to onboard new players to the Destiny 2 experience.

Another issue that brings this game now is that a large chunk of the original release is no longer in the live game game. 70% of the content on the original Destiny 2 disc that shipped in 2017 and most content released within the Destiny years 2017-2018 is no longer accessible. This includes, but not limited to:

The original Red War campaign
The original Forsaken campaign
5 Destinations (And more not counted, such as "The Third Spire")
5 Raids
7 PvP maps.
9 Strikes
Hundreds of weapons and armor were also sunset.

Bungie thought it ideal to instead of having the story outside of the game online, which they were criticized for previously in Destiny 1, they instead uploaded all of the cut-scenes from the above campaigns onto their YouTube channel. In game, you get a brief description as to what that campaign was and in some cases, you get a playable level from that campaign.

Sunsetting items is an issue with this franchise due to how it is handled. Some items should be sunset, while others are sold back to the player after they have been sunset. For example, the staple rocket launcher in this game is Gjallarhorn. This weapon was sunset in Destiny 1, then sold back to the player in the Destiny 1 DLC Rise of Iron. In Destiny 2, Gjallarhorn was sold back to the player again with the Bungie 30th Anniversary DLC. This weapon was sold back to the player twice after obtaining it 3 times over.

PvP has been neglected for a long time in this game. And by long time, I mean since Bungie split from Activision in 2019. Since that split, we had 4 maps return (Not included in the mentioned 7 inaccessible maps above) Since 5 years ago, we have had 1 PvP map added at the time of writing with 3 set to release in May 2024 and a handful of new game modes. They will still release balance patches, but the mode has been on life support for 5 years until the community had ill will towards the game due to the neglect that players of PvP were feeling.

The point you should take from this review is that Bungie is at it's best when they are on the cusp of the live service dying and losing players to ill will at either the game or the company. A desperate Bungie is the most creative Bungie. Historically, when Bungie's fans are not happy with the product, they release some of the best content right after that.

Destiny 1 Vanilla > Destiny 1 The Taken King
Destiny 2 Vanilla > Destiny 2 Forsaken
Destiny 2 Lightfall > ????

The best time to get into Destiny 2 is when the community is mad at Bungie for whatever reason. Historically, whatever DLC is past that point was a certified banger. All is to say... Destiny 2 is not a bad game at all. It's an amazing game, held back by the mismanagement of the game's suits (Higher ups/Executives), time gating content, sunsetting content and re-selling that content back to you (They have confirmed to have stopped removing content from the game with the release of Lightfall), neglected PvP content and lack of healthy on-boarding for new players.



Ignore the Steam hours logged into this game. I have well over 1800 hours in this game across all
platforms, and double that time across the franchise as you can check on WastedOnDestiny.com (86053046).

Destiny is simply put, the best looking and best playing first person shooter in our modern generation.

Long version...
Some say Destiny doesn't have what it takes to keep you hooked. While that was true for a time, Bungie has hacked at it for five years to deliver an amazing game. They have fallen several times along the way, but in the name of Destiny, they have achieved greatness with this game. As was the Taken King with Destiny 1 made it a great game, Forsaken completely turned Destiny 2 on it's head from it's mediocre launch state. With the new expansion Shadowkeep out, it's shaping to be one more incredible year with Destiny as a franchise.

Keep in mind, playing Shadowkeep's story and exploring the moon is just the beginning. As time goes on, new things will be discovered. Such as new exotics, new secrets for the community and for us, the players, to discover.

I can't recommend this game enough to anyone that's curious as to why Destiny is one of the best games ever created.

Easily one of the best platformers I've played in recent years. I can't begin to say how much I love and enjoy this game, except for its length. Almost everything can be finished in about fifteen hours, but it does have DLC and Steam Workshop levels.

If you enjoy GameCube era platformers, look no further than this game.

Hold off!!

So, if you have an OP PC, you're not going to like the fact that the game is locked to 30 or 60fps depending on your hardware. That's first off.

Second is since I've been playing, I've seen preformance dips lower than any other port I've ever touched. It's genuinely concerning that I'm seeing single digit frames while running on an RTX 2080Ti. There's also a focus issue that takes the game out of full screen and freezes the game. Which it doesn't freeze the game, just the display. So you can still get hit without being able to defend yourself. Unsure what causes this.

Third is that you have to manually beat the prolouge in order to change any options, including controls and graphics. Hope you like K to jump while using WASD to move and mouse to attack and camera controls for it! You're stuck with that control set until you beat that level. Not to mention that the game defaults to 720p@60fps in Windowed mode. Quite annoying if you ask me.

Don't get me wrong, I love the Senran Series! I just had too much ambition for this game and bought it at launch.

Do yourself a favor, everyone. Hold off until they patch most of this stuff and fix some kinks here and there. Marvelous has some great stuff here, but it's not ready for the prime time.

At most, buy this on sale.

I'll edit my review as the patches roll in.

Had a studdering issue that I did everything within reason to fix. Had I bought it, would have instantly refunded it.