Recent reviews by Honkey Kong

You know that trope of a ninja dashing behind a person and everything stays still until they sheathe their weapon, and only then does the bad guy explode? That is your main source of damage in this Metroidvania, and your source of defense is parrying the world a la Sekiro. Beautifully stylized and animated with a banger OST to boot. If you like this genre, this is a no brainer.

Whoever decided that this ultimately very silly tactics game has an OST that is 100% unflinchingly serious deserves a raise.

One of the best "soulslike" there is, up there with the GOATs.
Combat Systems: Banger
Bosses: Banger
Enemy Variety: Banger
Weapon Variety: Banger (actually kinda absurd its great)
OST: Banger
Voice Acting: actually good

My only complaint is that the game is pretty linear, you aren't going to to find a multi-hour optional area with a secret boss. Explorers beware, fighters enjoy.

With that bit of unpleasantness over with, this is one of the best coop games to come out in recent memory, Full of slapstick that I initially thought would wane on me, but here I am havin a giggle a month or two later. There is a necessary amount of teamwork to complete objectives and precision to make sure your teammates aren't in the splash zone of acre-reshaping orbital bombardments you can call down. If they aren't....well that's where the comedy comes in.

For the Sony debacle; there are some good notes to jot down for gamers, devs, and publishers across the board.

Every once in a while you try out a game and just know after 1 or 2 hours that oh yes, you are happily hooked.
"What changes could be made to make the funnest Hotline Miami" taken to it's logical conclusion with roguelike replayability. Special shout out to the sound design of the guns, one of the best across the board.

Amazing to me that such a spiraling and tragic narrative world and game was made by two people. However if you want horror you are gonna have to dig deep.

The amount of times I thought to myself "That's a smart way to do X" for this game is nuts. A lot of ideas and QoL features that get suggested for other games executed. Reviews are mixed due to initial server downtime upon release that have gotten better. if that's the only downside for you I suggest playing offline.

Bear with me as I mention Dark Souls in a game review, but you know how some folks will say that From Software has balls for creating these grandiose stages, environments, music and bosses only to put them behind an optional invisible wall, never to be seen by some players?

This game manifests that notion with some of if not the best prose and world building in a video game. It's so dense I want to say it's almost too much even when you are going to miss dialogue due to your RPG stats and RNG, but too much of a REALLY good thing is a great problem to have. The Voice Acting that comes with the Final Cut is straight up perfect, likely due to clear direction of the writing. Food for thought while we are on the eve of AI Voice Acting. My only complaints is that the game can be a little jank so you might want to quicksave fairly frequently, and the clothes-for-stats system sucks but to be honest I'm not sure what a good alternative would be.

Between this and Outer Wilds, 2019 was the year of incredible indie narrative experiences that you REALLY don't want to spoil yourself before playing.

If you like the idea of exploration, space, and environmental storytelling just play the game as blind as possible. There is a reason everyone that has finished it tells you that they wish they could play it for the first time again. It's been about 6 months for me and I still think about it. It's been a borderline religious experience for me. Oh and the OST is amazing.

I was a bit hesitant to buy it at $30 since folks were saying it was short, and it is. I completed the game and wanted more which is an excellent sign. A rhythm FPS hinges on it's soundtrack, and this one ♥♥♥♥♥