Recent reviews by StopWatch

It is a remake in name only. I played this game to death as a child, and a lot of features that a basic quality of life things just are not present in this game.

Pros
- The game notifies you of when you receive network addresses and stores passwords you learn
- Customization of the wanzers is improved that you can get a decal layer to apply camo patterns and change the emission lights on your wanzers.
- You can skip some of the longer tutorials at the start of the game now

Cons
- The wanzer frame personalities have been lost with the increase in fidelity and don't look anywhere near as interesting
- Ai upscaled art assets. The portraits all look like messy blobs and look very wonky.
- Small bits of personality in the game are gone. The text exploding like it was being shot when you delete letters isn't present. The wanzers have no real recoil from the guns when they fire.
- The wanzers seem more stiff, while this makes sense from giant mech logic, they lose that feeling of being an extension of the characters.
- Some of the designs of the weapons have been changed and I think some of them are copied and not changed where in the original every weapon and part is unique
- Small UI errors like wrong buttons or keys showing up in the wrong spots
- Softlocks are not very frequent, but in a game that had 0 over 20 years ago, having them now is just not acceptable
- Camera transitions are very sudden compared to the fade in and movement from the previous and makes the game look stiff.
- In the previous game, during combat if a building or some object was in the way of someone being shot at or attacking, the object would drop in opacity letting you still see the action. this is not present in this game leading you to just look at building facades when you are in tight fights
- There is no "Miss" indicator when an attack misses like in the original, its a small thing but with the lack of recoil on guns, the sudden and poor camera transitions and handling. You can end up looking at a combat encounter that just includes a poorly animated muzzle flash and that is it.
- There is no remnant of bullet holes in the walls or floors after missed shots like there is in the original. Again, a small thing but a lacking note of personality being lost.
- The map screens are weirdly quiet and have no sound or show much in the way of movement when you are traveling like in the original. Likewise there is no focusing on the world map. Another small difference but a lack of personality again.

I have been anticipating this release for so long now and find that this remake is very very lacking in all the charm the original had. I don't want to sound like an impossible to please fan, but the compounding lack of care and passion makes for a powerfully hollow and uninspired experience.

Amazing work on the Roguelite Deckbuilder Genre. The functionality of the cards and the interplay between the enemies and how you have to consider your deck and how you build it, rivals the great titans of the genre and is all displayed with great visuals and has an incredible soundtrack to back it all up. This is the work that will have ZUN proud!

Great game

Awesome game. Good way to fill in time. I like to jam it while listening or watching things to keep my hands occupied!

A little rough around the edges, normal mode is quite easy. But for a out of the blue metroidvania it is quite good. The sprite work is awesome. The platforming feels good and there are some challenging sequences to get through.
Only real downside to the game is that the Bosses lack a bit of depth that you would normally expect from a well developed Metroidvania but over all it is a great game to pick up on sale and was totally worth the wait.

Nice soda