Recent reviews by FAT CONTROLLER

In my opinion, a demo for this game was a bad idea in marketing it.

The demo has revealed several significant problems with this game. Some of them being objective issues that need to be fixed.

- There is too much softlock potential. This isn't a problem for the contained levels but for The Promise level that spans multiple (up to many dozens of screens), this is a huge problem and can lead to hours of progress lost due to a single misstep.
- Movement feels horrible. I don't know why, but I've never played a game with such simplistic movement that feels this bad.
- Game runs terribly for something that looks like this.
- The screens are too visually busy. Subjective but there's too much going on at times.
- The puzzle mechanics are extremely basic. I commend them on how each of the pieces work with each other but the simple reflection, push, pull, and many of the gemstone mechanics feel like they're out of the last century.

I've done 71/75 puzzles in this demo. I don't think I will continue with the rest because it's frankly not all that fun. I'm glad the demo let me realize this because this would've been an easy day 1 purchase after how good The Witness was.

Having just beat the game, I can confidently say that the negativity towards this game due to difficulty or 'hostile game design' is way, WAY, overblown. In fact, after the slight initial difficulty curve, you very quickly become incredibly overpowered, at which point the only things that present any degree of difficulty are the super clever map and puzzle design.

Even when powered up however, the enemies and bosses are a real treat to learn and outplay. I highly recommend choosing the hammer as the starting weapon or switching to it whenever you get the chance since its moveset allows for a lot more style and maneuverability than the others from what I've seen.

Superb sophomore effort from Yacht Club, and while I loved Mina, I'm not clamoring for any more content. I hope they quickly move on to their next big release.

47 when 007 walks in.

The first and only crowdfunded game I backed.

Totally abandoned, these devs are scammers.

Stay far away.

This is the start of a new genre of video game. The MSO - Massively Singleplayer Offline game.

If you're okay with spending 90-120+ minutes to lose progress and actively make your save file WORSE for future runs because RNG was not 90% in your favor, then this is the game for you, otherwise, stay far, far away.

This isn't even one of those games where you can realistically control RNG to some extent. You really can't. On runs where you lose, you're underpowered by a a factor of 2-10x. On runs where you win, you're overpowered by the same amount, but even then, anything can happen at the very last moment forcing the whole ordeal to have been for nothing while also hindering your future attempts.

Having just finished the main campaign, I can confidently say that The Roottrees are Dead manages to succeed at everything it set out to do. The magical feeling of sleuthing and deducing is captured incredibly well and doesn't really let up at all throughout the entire time. Sadly, I played this a few days after 2025, otherwise TRaD surely would've been high on my 2025 GOTY list.

I must confess that I had to make use of a guide at a point right before the very end of the game. I'm not sure if this is a common experience, but finding the very last thread to pull on before the whole thing unravels was not a pleasant experience. It does seem to be a case of hoping that the stars align and I didn't have the patience to try and attempt this. Aside from this relatively minor issue, TRaD consumed me for an entire day and left me with an experience I'll likely never forget.

I haven't started Roottreemania but I have high hopes for it too. I may update this review if I have much more to say on this campaign.

Strange Jigsaws was the closest I've felt to being inside of an art installation. I started it and couldn't put it down till I had fully completed it. Almost every puzzle felt like it was very thoughtfully designed and brings out some very unique mechanics I haven't seen before. Sadly, I played this a few days after 2025, otherwise Strange Jigsaws surely would've been high on my 2025 GOTY list.

ELDEN RING NIGHTREIGN is a victim of FromSoftware's stubbornness. First off, let's get it out of the way, this is a technical atrocity, even more so than Elden Ring before it. Not to even mention the fact that ultrawide resolutions aren't supported and the framerate is capped to 60, which just makes the game unpleasant to play.

Moreover, given the vast amount of content that From has created over the last 15 years in developing Dark Souls and Elden Ring, you'd expect that Nightreign would be the ideal place to showcase all this hard work. But no, you're given a grand total of SIX (6!) bosses from the entire Dark Souls trilogy here.

I recognize that it's not as easy as copy-pasting the boss from there to here, but I don't agree with the argument that game balance is the reason for this pitiful quantity. At its core, Nightreign is a roguelite, and that means some runs will be easier than others, with the primary challenge being the final boss. It doesn't help that the community had meta-gamed this within weeks wherein every run is easily winnable anyway - and instead of having the variety of the hundreds of enemies Miyazaki has designed, we get to fight SIX bosses from Dark Souls and a few dozen others from Elden Ring. Do not even get me started about the basic enemy variety either.

I can't recommend Nightreign to anyone, soulsborne fan or not. Especially after having seen the sad attempt at adding content post-launch and with the paid expansion.

I'm really glad I played THRESHOLD. This short experienece managed to immerse me into its world and storytelling like few other games have ever done. Not just due to the fact that you are able to pick from a select list of countries which will cause several locations and names to be changed to localized variants, but simply due to the atmosphere and monotony of being a guy who maintains a tiny section of a railroad. Despite this, the loop somehow remains both engaging and tense throughout its runtime with a steady introduction of new mechanics.

The game also has a lot to say with respect to its writing and it's up to you to glean from it what you will. All I'll say is that I was intrigued and motivated enough to get all the endings as well as all achievements which require several playthroughs.