Recent reviews by noioioioioioioiiia

My personal GOTY for 2023 easily. Novel rhythm-action concept executed to near-perfection paired with a beautiful art style and an enjoyable narrative. A generous suite of unlockable extras and an incredible level of polish. I seriously can’t express enough how much HFR feels like a labour of love from top to bottom - lots of hidden npc dialogs, silly details in item descriptions, the fun little DmC style animations between enemy waves etc. They really went the extra mile and outside of gamepass the game isn’t even full price.

Speaking of gamepass, Microsoft won’t see a dollar of mine going towards it from here on out. Same with any of their major IPs. Its a drop in the bucket and its obviously entirely inconsequential. But the version of the game’s industry they’re trying to cultivate, where games like this serve only to grant the publisher “prestige and awards” and the only games that are actually given space are “high-impact titles” based on old IP being beaten death is not one i’m interested in supporting. I’m not interested in supporting executives who think its even remotely conscionable to leave hundreds of dev’s worrying about how they’ll pay their bills because “it’s hard to support nine studios all across the world” and they feel like they might “topple over”. Give me a break.

At this point its not even a matter of making a point or exerting influence with how I spend my money. Its just a matter of principle.