Recent reviews by 󠁳⁧⁧ α︎ssist ツ

Don't let the fanboys gaslight you into thinking this is peak literature. It’s essentially 'Intro to Philosophy' for people who like gothic lolita, desperately name-dropping Sartre and Nietzsche out of context, and pretending that a wet puddle of a plot could cosplay as a deepsea trench. Tbh i fully believe that with this metaphor i already went deeper than the game ever will.

Gameplay is a mixture of 'open world' RPG (in a strictly limited and empty world, that is), sidescroller and bullet hell (with the bullet hell episodes being overdone and way too frequent).

If anything it’s a gorgeous looking (for PS2 standards) mecha fever dream, yet to be brutally honest I spent 40 hours doing simple 'A to B'-fetch-sidequests (probably where these names came from) and mashing the same two buttons fighting against about 3x as many NPCs as the game would've needed, meanwhile enduring one of the most obnoxious main casts I've encountered in gaming so far.

To be fair, the last third of the story was somewhat well-written and for anime lovers the game might have the right mix of stupid and pretentious.

Glory to mankind, I guess.

Simple, charming, and sadly pretty short and too easy.
I completed all puzzles in one sitting of 3 hours.

If You're looking for serious Sudoku, this one will be way(!) too easy and have way too little puzzles (it's only 27+12, and half of them are 4x4 or 6x6)

Treated as a fun little cozy game it's still a win tho.
I give a very skeptical thumbs up for the art and for being cozy, but not for the Sudoku part. 🐾

Expected a chill point-and-click.
Got generational trauma, nightmares, and a main character with a personality based on chain smoking.

I liked the puzzles a lot, the style is fun, but tbh the story is.. i mean i know that it's meant to juggle difficult topics in a way that caters to adolescents but imo it does so in a relatively shallow way. Which is sad given the fact that this kind of game heavily depends on narrative & story.

My favorite part of Hidden Cats is when there's hidden cats until suddenly there's no hidden cats anymore. Simply Amazing!

Clair Obscur is one of the most magical, special, and genuinely top-tier games I’ve ever played. I completed it 100%, and when it finally ended, I couldn't just close the game - instead I immediately jumped into the DLC they added a few days ago. I simply had to stay in this world a little longer.

Gameplay is incredibly smooth. Combat feels crisp and responsive, and each char has a distinct playstyle. That said, once you become proficient at parrying, it can start to dominate your approach. You pretty much learn the attack patterns, parry them and that's largely how battles are fought. On top of that, one of the chars can be built in a way that completely annihilates everything - including the hardest bosses. So whether you want to cheese your way through the game is largely up to you, and i personally don't view that as a positive.

The story is as quiet as it is loud, as lovely as it is devastating, and as sad as it is comical. The writing is mature, yet some dialogue is among the most playful and childishly fun I’ve encountered in my 20-year gaming journey. It certainly has the charme some of the early Final Fantasy games had. What I love most is that the narrative breathes. It lets its themes unfold naturally over time without overexplaining itself. The characters feel deeply human, and in many ways you don’t just watch the story - you feel it happen.

The worldbuilding is phenomenal. Every (story-relevant) location feels steeped in history, as though something meaningful occurred there, and there's many many more places that add a little context to the world, and a ton of journals which can be collected and add more layers to the lore. The environments tell their own stories and expedition (see what I did there?) feels genuinely rewarding because curiosity itself is rewarded. It’s like walking through a painting that remembers things you don’t.

Visually, the game is absolutely stunning. The art direction leans heavily into contrast - chiaroscuro, light and shadow, beauty and decay. It’s just ... tasteful, aesthetic. Strikingly beautiful. I took an unreasonable number of screenshots and regret nothing :D

The soundtrack deserves special praise. It doesn’t merely exist in the background - it guides and leads your emotions through the different stages of the game. Quiet tracks during exploration and upbeat combat music.. most tracks just capture the essence of their respective levels/scenes so so well that more than only a few songs will keep living rent-free in your head. If you’re on the fence about playing this game, listen to a track or two on youtube - it may be enough to make the decision for you.

The difficulty is generally fair: A little on the easier side with the exception of a few optional endgame superbosses. Be aware that the world opens up significantly at a certain point and due to that it’s possible to “outgrow” parts of the game, which can make some lategame content feel too easy and slightly diminish the fun during the final hours of the main story.

In the end, this game made me FEEL so much more than most other games manage to. And it did so with seemingly no effort. Fully captured me. I experienced wonder, shock, pure delight, deep sorrow - and that quiet ache when something beautiful is coming to an end. I laughed out loud just as often as i had a tear running down my cheek. At multiple scenes I outright sobbed. More than once I had to pause for a few hours just to process what was happening and to emotionally collect myself in order to keep playing. And I don’t say that lightly or just for the sake of this review - this game can do that to you.

All I know is that it had countless unforgettable moments I’ll randomly think about years from now, and I love it for that. But also for so much more. Not if but when you allow yourself to take the time and explore, you're going to uncover many many heart-warming moments, dialogues and details painted all over the world.

Easily a 10/10. Highly, HIGHLY, recommended. Emotionally devastating and healing at the same time, with a story better than anything on netflix, obscenely beautiful, a soundtrack that even as a standalone would already justify any pricetag, with voice acting on a different level.

My GOTY without a doubt.

VA-11 Hall-A is a cyberpunk game where the most powerful weapon isn’t a gun, but pouring the wrong drink on purpose. You play as a bartender who listens to people trauma-dump while you decide whether they get something strong enough to forget or mild enough to keep talking. The world is collapsing outside, but inside the bar you’re arguing about rent, relationships, and whether this customer needs sugar or just therapy. The writing is so good you’ll start caring deeply about characters whose life problems you can only solve with alcohol.

By the end, you realize you weren’t managing a bar, no, you were running an emotional support speakeasy. I'd order another round any day, sadly the sequel looks like it will never become reality.

The Wolf Among Us proves storytelling can carry an entire game. Choices feel heavy, characters feel real, and the atmosphere drips noir. Bigby is a fantastic lead with just enough edge. Every episode ends with regret. A must-play for narrative fans.

Green Hell does not want you to survive. Hunger, disease, and sanity all team up against you. The jungle is deeply hostile. Crafting feels important because failure is brutal. A survival experience for masochists. It's probably the EFT among survival games when it comes to realism.

I recognize its qualities but didn't enjoy it much. Maybe i just don't enjoy the survival genre after all, not sure.

Cured my gam(bl)ing addicition.

physics-based suffering disguised as a puzzle game.

movement: drunk marshmallow.
cooperation turns into sabotage.
accidents turns into solutions.
laughter is guaranteed.
progress is optional.