Recent reviews by [team pig]Pidge

Absolum combines the genres of beat 'em up (or belt scrollers) and roguelike "build builder" games, especially riffing heavily off the vibe of Hades. This results in a brilliant marriage of a game if you're a fan of the beat 'em up genre, as you get an extremely replayable experience that avoids the monotony many other games in the genre can sometimes be guilty of.

As you progress through numerous runs, Absolum does a great job of slowly trickling new content and ways to play to you while giving you enough time to learn and master the depth and finer points of the combat system. And what a combat system it is! Taking cues from many other modern beat 'em ups since we entered a renaissance period in the early 20's, the developers have provided an easy to learn, but challenging to master combat system that dissuades button mashing and encourages varying up your combos and attacks.

All four playable characters (two of which you will unlock relatively early on) play very differently. They have their own quests and personal content, multiple different builds to try out as well as backstory to find by exploring the expansive world and all of it's branching paths.

My only real complaint about the game is the fact that I want more content. It's that good!

I am not usually a fan of the idle/clicker genre, but Tower Wizard is a pretty fantastic value for your money, even if the entire game can be completed in just a few hours.

Short and sweet, Tower Wizard will guide you through numerous playthroughs attempting to build the biggest Wizard Tower there ever was. Each playthrough will unlock new 'blessings' (this game's talent tree, basically) that you can spend to make the next playthrough exponentially faster/easier, allowing you to ascend higher and higher over time.

The gameplay loop is great, they regularly introduce new mechanics and overall it's just a good time. Recommend.

It's rare to see a JRPG with both a very compelling story as well as excellent combat mechanics that keep you hooked even dozens of hours in.

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33's story and writing are absolute art. I've been playing this genre of game since the 1980's, and there are not many other titles that have a story that hits the emotions and heartstrings quite like this. I understand this may be high praise, but the game deserves it.

The exploration and combat are also very impressive and engaging. The developers did a great job constantly delivering new game mechanics and abilities steadily throughout the course of the game. I found the game to be very challenging on the hard difficulty and struggled with several bosses, but ultimately found the satisfaction of finally learning their patterns and countering them to be worth the frustration.

Overall, I really can't recommend this game enough if you are a fan of the JRPG genre. It's truly something else and I look forward to seeing what this developer does next!

What if you combined Devil May Cry with Sid Meier's Pirates! and added dozens of fun minigames?

You get Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii, which happens to be such stupid fun I can overlook the goofy plot.

For a few months, I considered this game a worthy successor to Overwatch and put many hours into it. I felt the game was a lot of fun for being free and appreciated the regular communication from NetEase about the game.

Unfortunately, with the news of staff being laid off at this point when the game had a massively successful launch and is making money hand over fist with cosmetics, I will be voting with my wallet and spending no money on this game and uninstalling immediately.

I refuse to honor or give additional cash to a company that operates so profit first that it would lay off staff that's actively involved with the game just to finish a financial period strong. I find it repulsive and would recommend that if you are viewing this review and thinking about whether to download the game or not - consider Overwatch 2 or Team Fortress 2 or another hero shooter. It isn't *that* good that it's worth rewarding completely terrible, greedy and predatory behavior towards employees.

Goodbye, Netease! I specifically am not saying Good Luck.

In the past few years, we've seen a resurgence in the 2D Beat 'em Up Genre, with some incredible showings such as Streets of Rage 4, TMNT: Shredder's Revenge and more. Double Dragon Gaiden keeps that positive vibe going by introducing several fun and fresh features that make it currently one of my favorite beat 'em ups of all time.

The genre, originally meant to munch quarters from players in an arcade, became stagnant in the 90s due to a million (not exaggerating by much) soulless and bland clones that flooded the market in both arcades and home markets/consoles. It was almost impossible in some of these games to NOT die and have to continue unless you had a good trick or exploit to use against the AI. This lead to some monotonous gameplay over time and a lack of strategy.

I feel the "new guard" of the genre including Double Dragon: Gaiden improve and fix these issues left dormant for over a decade. Combat is very much skill based with player's choices and ability easily allowing you to avoid all damage if you're good enough. There are a variety of difficulty modifiers to fit any gamer's playstyle for maximum challenge or a smooth sailing beat down of the bad guys. Traditional arcade experience of 2 or 3 lives and infinite continues? Set it up. Want just one life for a roguelike experience and that's it? Do it! These difficulty modifiers, as you increase the 'heat' so to speak will give you more currency to spend after your game to unlock new characters and content (for 100% free).

Speaking of free, the game now includes a free DLC that adds 3 new fun characters that are fully unlockable from the start for $0.00, which is a fantastic gesture in this modern age of game developer greed.

As mentioned previously, gameplay is a far cry from the old days of mashing one button repeatedly and occasionally jumping. You can look forward to combat using super manuevers (every character has 3 whole supers moves for variety/options), combos, dodge moves, double jumps and even a tagging system. That's right, you choose 2 characters and will tag between the two each stage!

Stages, you say? Replayability is crazy here as. You'll choose from 4 target gangs to clean up the city to start, but the order you choose will change the pathway entirely. Segments will be added to stages, boss fights altered and more, all keeping things relatively fresh as you get to know the game and ultimately clean up the city!

Overall, between the incredible fighting gameplay and optional rogue-like elements, Double Dragon: Gaiden has me hooked and is my current leader of the pack in the beat 'em up genre. Highly recommend.

Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes is a love letter to the classic "Suikoden" JRPG franchise from the late 90s and 2000s, and faithfully delivers an experience similar to these games. However, it is not without it's flaws.

The game definitely feels like it could have used a few more months in the oven. The minigames and some of the character recruitment quests can be absolutely brutal. In true old-school form (not in a good way) the game isn't exactly respectful of your time: you'll be doing a lot of backtracking, you move slow, and menus can be a slow slog.

The game takes a while to really pick up, but when it does it becomes a delight. The base/city building aspect of the game is where it really shines and I'm excited to see what Rabbit & Bear can do with future games in the franchise considering how promising of a start this is. The beginning of the game can be slow in terms of story and also frustrating at various points with very annoying enemies, but once you get to the mid-way part of the game it really starts to deliver and come together.

Overall, I would recommend for JRPG fans, especially if you were a fan of the Suikoden games. If not, this may not be your cup of tea.

If you're a fan of Persona 4 Golden or Persona 5, this should be a no-brainer to purchase immediately.

Persona 3 Reload is a full re-imagining of the original Persona 3, which I admittedly never got to play. That being said, it feels more like a sequel to 5 than you would imagine, with a few glaring omissions.

In typical Persona fashion, you have a metric ton of content to move through, featuring almost an entire calendar year of events, social sim gameplay, JRPG style challenging battles and more.

The typical gameplay hook is that you will have several days of social sim gameplay & plot to move through, then go into Tartarus, the game's "dungeon" so to speak. Tartarus features over 200 floors of randomly generated enemies, loot and events mixed in with pre-set boss fights at certain floors which will certainly challenge any player depending on which of the 5 difficulty levels you chose.

Every month (give or take) in-game will feature a "full moon" which is a unique and epic plot event and boss battle that will provide in many cases the game's greatest challenges.

If you like Persona, you'll love Persona 3 Reload. If you don't, you probably won't. My only complaint as a newer Persona fan (started with Persona 4 Golden on PC when it launched) is that Tartarus, despite it's randomly generated format can get a bit montonous even with it's fresh coats of paint ever several dozen floors.

Overall, I highly recommend if you want a long and involved JRPG/social sim mix that will give you probably over 100 hours of quality fun for the price.

Baldur's Gate 3 feels like a D&D campaign made and hosted by a professional Dungeon Master just for you (and up to 3 friends optionally) with a borderline absurd amount of freedom, an incredibly likeable cast of characters and a staggering amount of ways to progress through the 100+ hour storyline.

Truly one of the most impressive games I have ever had the pleasure of playing through (and looking forward to several more playthroughs).

This game is literally not finished.

Extremely weird AI bugs, an absolutely bare bones wrestler edit, very beta-like tutorial and feel for the most part. The game is supposed to be an homage to the AKI wrestling games and while the groundwork is there for a good game and the engine is very well done, this thing needs to be put back in the oven for quite a bit.

The game does feel like the classic AKI engine (WCW vs. the World, WCW/NWO Revenge, WWF No Mercy, etc.) and I have to give them credit for that, but that's about the only thing they got right.

Every other thing about this game feels like they built a good engine, and were just starting the framework around it. It's that bad. And honestly --- I am not an anti-AEW troll, I am a fan since day 1. Do yourself a favor and do NOT spend over 50 dollars on this game until it's worth it. In all honestly, in a few months it will either be massively improved, or on sale for half price.