Recent reviews by btomasulo

Xenonauts 2 is a more granular, tactical, less random XCom. Yes there is still chance, but if your people die it really is on you. I love it, gives you that "one more battle" feeling you want from a turn based tactics game. If you played the first game, this is more streamlined with better quality of life features without being dumbed down. I don't know how they pulled it off but the end result was worth the wait. Plays great on Steam Deck as well.

Everyone mentions this game takes inspiration from Persona. However, just as important this game takes inspiration from B movie horror. Normal reference humor works like this, a work will go "Remember this piece of media that's superior to us?" And the audience is supposed to go "yeah I do." Demonschool does the opposite, it says "Remember this obscure terrible film?" And you say "No one remembers that, you made it up." But it turns out they didn't make it up. They've got full on reviews of bad movies in this game. Full points for originality as far as the writing goes.

I also see people say this game is easy. But easy how? If all you want to do is barely scrape by to get to an ending, sure the game is easy. But if you want to ace every map and max all the friendships between different party members, you will be swapping characters and redoing levels constantly. I really don't see this self imposed limitation as any different than picking a difficulty setting.

When gamers ask "why can't someone make a game where my choices actually matter," the answer is mostly "well, that would be an enormous amount of work to make extra content most people will never see." And fair enough. But Last Defense Academy instead says "now your choices can matter." This might be the closest we get to the ideal. Without spoiling too much, there's ~20 different timelines. You can hop between them at will, progression transfers across, you really can see all the content if you want. The tactical combat is pretty fun too, it gets away from some games having defensive play become dominant by giving you extra attack and resources for playing aggressively.

The online discourse around SMT makes it seem like you've gotta be some turbo hardcore gamer to enjoy this. However, I actually found this easier than other ATLUS titles (at least on normal difficulty) just due to the freedom customizing your party this game gives you. If you're struggling with a fight, this game does not expect you to grind, you probably just need to pick some different tools you already have. The story was pretty cool too, they gave all the rizz to the moral relativist character so I sided with her.

This game is addictive as hell without the predatory monetization that often accompanies games like this. You pay for it once, put your wallet away, then zone out into the game.

I'm actually a bit shocked at the lack of marketing for this game. I think a lot of people who've never played any DQM/DWM would really enjoy this game, especially with the success of Palworld people are hungry for quality games in the monster collection genre. I think this game really delivers. I'm equally shocked and grateful it was brought to PC, and works great on my SteamDeck. I'm not sure why the game is only "playable," it was originally a Switch game and the Switch players don't seem to be complaining about the text size.

Dragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Prince is the definitive Dragon Quest Monsters experience. I was a big fan of the GBC Dragon Warrior Monsters (preferred it to Pokemon thanks to the great monster breeding system, now called synthesis), but I have to admit my feelings of that game are clouded by nostalgia. Not this game. It's got modern yet still stylized graphics, great new quality of life features like fast forward and autobattle (for the easy nonboss fights), and way more monsters than the old games.

If you enjoyed the Mass Effect Shepard Trilogy/Mass Effect Legendary, do yourself a favor and skip this one. When I played Legendary, I played all the content, did all the DLCs and ended my journey with a desire for more. Andromeda sadly does not scratch that itch. It's got some interesting ideas, but the game drags and has too much padding. The characters are not as likable, though they have their moments. If this game was half as long, well then I could probably recommend it. As it stands, this game is simply a chore.

Yeah it's buggy, at times can be frustrating, and the marines keep repeating the same one liners. That said, this game is in the pipe, 5x5 when it comes to the atmosphere, the tension, the theme. The plot is cheesy in just the right way to be absolutely gripping, and the aliens are always right around the corner to kick your ass. Absolutely recommend.

Terra Invicta is the most detailed, most ambitious alien invasion and solar system colonization simulator I have ever played. Fantastic game.

Lovers of old school Zelda games will be right at home. It has enough of a fresh modern spin to keep from feeling stale or unoriginal though. The base game is more difficult than Zelda, though there are difficulty settings.