Review the Last Game You Finished

I played FFVI to FFIX growing up and feeling nostalgic so gonna replay those games on the remastered versions, FFVIII was my favourite back then I wonder if it will still be

I also played old Pokemon games (Gen 1-3) but can't find anywhere I can play those anymore :( gen 2 was my fav as you went back to Kanto after completing the Johto region

Moonscars is a pixel-art, grimdark soulslike metroidvania(?). With this being basically me favourite genre of games, I had very high expectations for this. Unfortunately, the game mostly fell flat for me, although it does deliver decent entertainment in some key areas.

To not sound overly negative, I'll start with the positives. The main one, which is also the reason why the game got decent amount of attention, is its absolutely gorgeus artstyle. Mostly 3-color pallet of black, white and red, paired with some incredibly fluid animations works perfectly for this genre and conveys a great atmosphere.

Combat against regular enemies is also very well design, you have many offensive options and the game encourages (and rewards) you for seamlessly switching between all of them. It feels great to land attacks, parries and spells on all the foes the game throws at you.

I liked the story as well, it is a bit less cryptic than your typical soulslike, but all the usual themes of decaying kindgomds and death are there, as well as some other interesting ideas.

Unfortunately, this is where my praising ends. My biggest issue with the game comes from its biggest diversion from the standards of the genre - namely, its implementation of roguelike-ish mechanics.

As you go kill enemies, you get continuous levels of upgrades, that are lost on death. Additionally, on death there is a decent chance that the game will go into "ravenous moon" mode, making enemies hit harder and have more health. Basically, you are rewarded for not dying more than in other soulslikes and punished for death more than in other soulslikes.

This creates an awkard gameplay loop, where for a while you're just cruising, snowballing into a powerhouse and making the game extremely easy. Then, when you finally die, it becomes much, much harder. Fortunately, there are some ways to remedy this, but they are mostly tied to limited consumables. Overall, it just feels like a bad design for a soulslike.

Exploration is also lacking in my opinion. I hesitated to even call it a metroidvania - yes, there are movement abilities and ability gates, but these were planned in an incredibly linear fashion. Sure, you can "preview" some areas earlier if you want, but you will be stopped very quickly - the overall progression of the game is completely linear.

The level design seemed cool at first, but it got very repetetive very quickly and by around half of the game I was already bored. There are some secrets, but they are not exciting - this is tied to a very limited character progression/customization, I understand that this is not an rpg, but you need some way of rewarding exploration other than one of 2 ingame currencies.

Finally, my feeling on bosses are rather mixed. There's not many of them (I counted 7, with 1 reskin) and I wouldn't necessarly call them "bad", but they are just designed in a way that's not my style, with tons of adds, projectiles and AOE attacks. I understand that designing a fair, but challenging straight duel can be difficult, especially with parry window and reward being very generous, but what we got just isn't doing it for me.

Despite all the negativity above, I still had a decent amount of fun with the game. It's not bad, it just tried very hard to be different than others in the genre and, in my opinion, all those diversions were not succesful. That being said, big part of my disappointment came from my high expectations. If you're looking for a pretty game with great combat and don't mind overly punishing mechanics, Moonscars might be for you. From me it's a 6/10.

Midnight Suns is an excellent deck building game mixed with a Marvel comics social simulator. Thw combat is tactical with lots of flashy animations. Biggest criticism is that enemy variety is limited.

In between combat, you get to hang out with Captain America, Spiderman, Wolverine et al. There's a lot of dialogue, much more than you'd expect from a game like this. Some of it is decently written - joining a book club run by Blade is a fun diversion. What doesn't work as well is how every one of these legendary superheroes fawn over your protagonist, an original character known as Hunter. To all of them, you're the most wonderful bestie friendy-wendy they've ever had, mwa mwa, hugs and kisses, they all love you. No romances thankfully. The love-in is over the top and not credible.

Deaths gambit afterlife was free on epic a couple weeks ago.

It's most like salt and sanctuary, solid 2d platformer good controls one of the best free games I've gotten from them.

Sweet, Ill add it to my list.

Also, Salt & Sanctuary was a free game from them as well. 90% of my PC games are free from them!

Currently playing Assassins Creed Unity which was free from somewhere also.

Either Ninja Gaiden 3 or Bucky O'Hare for the NES. Can't remember which. Bucky's a lot like the Mega Man games (level design, switching characters/weapons mid level), but it does better with just about every aspect. Arguably the best platformer on the NES.

Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart

The first game I downloaded when I got my PS5 almost a year ago. Finally got around to playing and what a joy it was. A fairly easy game, but beautiful to look at with very addictive gameplay.

8.5/10

Star Wars: Jedi Survivor

Another gorgeous game despite the occasional texture and pop-in issues. I really enjoyed the story and the depth of the characters. The combat system was perfect for someone like me who sucks at souls-like games, but still wants to play them.

One thing it did make me wish for is an open-world SW game with an honor system like in Red Dead.

9/10