Yars Rising Review

I randomly just found this game when browsing through game releases for the Fall of 2024 and found a trailer of it. I'm not very familar with old school Atari games outside of hearing about Missile Command a decade ago. On top of the most well known stuff assiocated with them like Space Invaders and Tetris. I also don't know what the "Yars" franchise is. As a result, much of the fan service and throwbacks that this game has will be lost on me. I bought it a convention and the fact that it didn't release at full price also made me try it out.

Yars Rising is esstentially a metroidvania with it leaning towards the "Metroid" side. There is also some light stealth which is mainly the hidespots in Mark of the Ninja. There is also lots of mini games, lots upon lots of mini games. There's more hacking mini games here than any other game I played, it does make sense within the story since the protagonist is a computer genius.

One major thing I will suggest is to turn on inviniciblity during the minigames. This does not effect trophies or anything. I say this because there is already a timer and you lose health upon failing them. Being stuck on those mini games can get in the way of the moment to moment platforming and exploration.

The way it handles health and missile upgrades and additional perks is also interesting in that you can't permenantly keep it unless you fit it in with a tetris style mini game.

From the looks of it, you could think that Yars Rising is a typical 2D metroidvania and outside of the light stealth, upgrade system and execessive mini games and you right. With that said, while it doesn't do anything standout, it doesn't do anything outright terribly either.

It's an enjoyable game to play in the moment. This is also a forgiving game too with plenty of save points scattered throughout the various maps, the game autosaving after every successfully completed hacking mini game, and the game being too generous with the amount of inviniciblity frames upon damage taken.

It does satisfy the itch that a metroidvania should give you in that you are bottlenecked but slowly throughout the game, you find more and more upgrades that opens up the map.

Music is also solid too especially considering it has the same styles and motifs as the River City Girls games and as a result certain areas of the game can have quite a bit of personality

There are some major standout moments with that said mainly just two bosses one with a spider lady monster and especially with Missile Commander. The latter especially in that incoporates the gameplay of the series it's based on in a boss fight with a really awesome boss theme accompanying it. I can picture many calling Yars Rising a forgettable game but I find it hard to believe they would find the latter boss fight forgettable.

That's another issue with the game. Spider Lady monster and Missile Commander are the toughest while also most memorable fights in the game. Every boss after Missile Commander is a pushover and can probably be beaten in a 2nd, 3rd if not first try.

The last few sections of Yars Rising is also a slog because you have to rescue 4 aliens before you can fight the final boss. It almost felt like this was here because the devs knew that the fight was a pushover.

There is also random moments of unpolish early game but went away the more I played it.

Story was decent and entertained me in the moment even if some plot points kind of feel forgotten about like with Mrs. Davidson and Missile Commander I don't even recall getting a full on death scene. The main character can enter into a try hard of being a quirky nerdy girl character but she never got overly indulgent with it since she never acts overly smug or condescending.

Overall, I expected Yars Rising to be nothing more than just a quick game Wayforward put together and it was just that. It entertained me in the moment, had some solid music and had some enjoyable boss fights. I was expecting to drop this game after a point but I didn't. Not the most amazing game you can play but not anything I consider awful either.

Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver(Playstation 5) Review

Soul Reaver and by extension the Legacy of Kain series takes me back in more ways than one. Back when I first heard of, "video games with great stories". Soul Reaver and LoK by extension were one of the games that always popped up. I tried to get into SR1 over a decade ago and was turned away by the initial lack of hand holding in the game design. I did finally beat it around 2014 through PS1 emulation and I enjoyed it but apart of me wondered if I liked it because it was one of the first "older video games" I played where it rarely held your hand and was able to mostly play it without a guide. I've beaten many older games since then and the recent remasters of the first two SR games convienently released as well. As a whole, I'd say SR1 while a very ambitious game for it's time and even now, it's hard to not overlook a lot of the design shortcomings it has which were there even for it's time.

When it comes to story and presentation Soul Reaver delivers...in some ways but feels lacking in others. The opening cutscene is easily one of if not the best in gaming. It follows the idea of stories creating attachment in a quick period of time almost down to the letter. The music, the narration and dialogue by Michael Bell, the cutscene cinematrography, the hints and foreshadowing within the scene itself and it's implications later in the LoK series is impeccable. If you want to open any video game with a single cutscene and create a strong first impression, you can't get any better than this. To top it all off, Soul Reaver is a sequel to the first Blood Omen game yet it never feels like you ever needed to know the latter to get into this.

The voice acting as it's been said many times over the years by Simon Templeman, Tony Jay and the aforementioned Micheal Bell is fantastic and is easily some of the best voice work at the time especially in terms of mainstream console games. There are other good things the story does well like how you learn about Raziel's Sarafan brethren as the character kills them one by one throughout the game. There isn't much in the way of exposition but they reveal their characters through dialogue and Raziel's inner monologues as he explores each other their domains. I felt bad for Melchaiah the most since he seems to geniunely regret what he did and is revolted by what he's done. This is a well presented story for it's time especially.

However, with that said, SR1's story can feel like a prologue to later events and is more step up for Soul Reaver 2. With some plot twists and the ending especially playing a bigger role in the latter than the former. Much of the amazing dialogue and thought provoking moments happen in SR2. SR1's plot is framed as a revenge story and it isn't until 2 where it really starts to become something much bigger. As a result, SR1's story feels like a solid first season or protracted prologue to a TV show where it sets up an amazing second season. I'm talking about story so much because this was Soul Reaver's biggest strength.

Gameplay is where things are ambitous but lacking. To describe Soul Reaver it's basically Core Design Tomb Raider meets Legend of Zelda meets the Metroid(before Prime and metroidvanias were even a thing).

One big defreniating gameplay idea is that Raziel can't die by conventional means since he's a spectral husk and thus there are no fail states. Crystal Dymanics at the time seemed to be aware of this since much of SR1's challenge is figuring things out rather than combat.

Combat itself is a puzzle where every enemy is immortal but by burning, staking or throwing them in water, you can kill them. This starts to not matter in the long run since once you get the titular Soul Reaver, this can be trivial but not completely. Damage enemies and stun them and you can get a one shot kill if you get hit the sword dissolves but then comes an issue that there will always be a material realm portal nearby with souls avaliable to absorb to get back to where you were.

The spectral realm is interesting but it's mainly just there to extend platforms to make jumps and to bail the player out of redoing content upon failure, it is possible to lose all health in the spectral realm but the enemies in that realm are so easy to defeat and die in a few hits that you will back in the material realm in no time.

This leaves platforming and exploration. The former felt awkward and unrefined even for it's time. One could criticize the aforementioned Tomb Raider games for not having traditional analog controls. However, once you slowly learn the rules of the TR games or TR 1996 at least, the rules of platforming are very consistent and doesn't feel floaty. SR1 despite having analog controls and the modern remaster having right stick to turn the camera, I still felt like getting jumps right especially in some sections felt like a game of luck than it felt like I was good. The camera can get too close to Raziel in tight spaces, being precise while using the glide ability feels like I could undershoot and overshoot my landing on the platforms and there are times where I missed a jump where it felt like I could've grabbed the ledge or landed on the platform.

There are dungeons and bosses. The opening necropolis dungeon was the best and it never reaches that point again. The puzzles and clues felt like it was slowly guiding the player. Silenced Cathedral was a terrible follow up level and has all of the aforemention platforming issues of I mentioned as well doing x amount of something to progress at least twice in the same level. The rest of the dungeons while not as terrible don't like up to Necropolis. The bosses' biggest challenge is figuring how to defeat them but the clues to beating them aren't hinted at very well especially in Dumah's case.

The metroidvania elements while novel add little to the game. There are no traditional fail states meaning there is no need to get them and you don't need to use them on enemies or bosses. The latter especially since they are puzzles and can't be beaten through combat so the abiltiies give you no edge over them. In Metroid for example, health tanks are needed to give the player more hit points so they can help defeat bosses but since Soul Reaver's enemies and bosses are puzzles, on top of no fail states why would you want to find health upgrades?

Much has been said about the block pushing puzzles but a big issue is the game overly relies on them without much to spice things up. Tomb Raider had it's block pushing puzzles but there were other aspects to exploration like finding keys and plot progressing items, pulling switches, avoiding traps, and doing timed puzzles. The last dungeon of the game has so many of the same tedious puzzles especially regarding block pushing that I wanted things to wrap up already.  

The abilties you get by killed bosses do open up the map and the game does a decent job without spoonfeeding you where to go next in the overworld making the map in the remaster sort of redudant. The abilties do get decent use like the projectile attack, climbing and spectral realm phasing through walls so there is some interesting level scenarios here so it isn't all sub par game design. 

Powers earned by defeated bosses do open up the map and the game does a decent job without spoonfeeding you where to go next in the overworld making the map in the remaster sort of redudant.

Overall, while ambitious Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver crumbles under it's weight and is mainly carried by it's story and presentation. Still, it did introduce me to the wonders of backtracking and non hand holding game design so I can give the game credit where it's due even there many games before and after that has surpassed it. SR1 is still worth looking into since in spite of this game and by extension the series' gameplay shortcomings, it earned the cult following it has for a reason.

Lost Judgment Review

Judgment was a game I enjoyed for the most part. The game's individual story chapters can drag on for a little too long, I didn't like the forced side cases and the combat much like the rest of the Yakuza series was just so okay it's average. However, the story was gripping even though I do have some other issues with it besides the pacing. I played it because it felt divorced enough from the mainline Yakuza's overarching plot. I did hear some good things about the sequel "Lost Judgment" however throughout my entire time playing I just kept asking myself, "why wasn't this just a TV show instead of a game?"

Yes, I have played the aforementioned Judgment and Yakuza games and I'm aware that they have lengthy cutscenes. With Lost Judgment since I played the main story, a good amount of my time was spent just watching cutscenes and having characters getting into lengthy conversations and exposition. There were multiple times where I even finished food and the cutscenes were still going. Longplays of Lost Judgments's campaign can be 21 hours but the cutscenes are 15 and 6 of those hours are actual gameplay. In a lot of ways, LJ is a TV show where each episode is as long as a feature length film.

With that out of the way, there is already one major issue when starting up LJ's story in that basically it follows the logic of Marvel and DC comics where a major crossover event happened and if you pick up a solo hero or a hero group's comic after that said event, the story is going to be harder to follow. I can accept that but there are also other aspects like there are characters in the story that date back to the days of Yakuza 0 and the first game but I'm just now hearing about them so there are aspects where I'm scratching my head. The Like a Dragon series started off as standalone stories and now there is some greater narrative going on. It's out of left field.

Then there is other major problems like how despite the cutscenes being so lengthy Yagami's allies have less challenges and things to do in the plot. With Saori being about the only exception but she contributes to Yagami's case the same way in the first game. Mafuyu had so little presence that I almost forgot that she was even a character in the story. Kaito, Higashi, Genda, Sugihara, and Hoshino might as well be IMF agents from the Mission Impossible movies in how little they are involved other than just being Yagami's helpers. Tsukomo despite at first having a more active role is not much different than Luther from MI is in the plot as a whole.

I'll give the story credit in that the new characters like Yoko Sawa is kind of interesting and she has enough going on for me be hooked to Yagami's plight. The forced side cases and scenes that don't advance the plot are noticeably toned down. The themes of bullying and vicitimizing are interesting and made me even think about them even after beating the game despite the fallacious logic the main villain has. It however doesn't make me less kind on other issues I had with the story especially where I'm spent so much time watching cutscenes.

Gameplay takes two steps forward and two steps back. The mortal wound system is gone, thankfully. There is only one tailing mission in the main story and there are no progression roadblocks. There are however very scripted stealth segments which just tells you how to do everything and you get a fail state for not doing things exactly the way the devs intended.

There is automated platforming and parkour now. Both are so infrequent that I wonder they are in the game. The stamina system adds nothing other a pointless fail state, it's still your typical automated platforming. If the wallruns are QTEs, it might as well not be there.

Speaking of QTEs, RGG still uses them to this day. They are also uncommon that when they pop it can be a "huh?" Failing one QTE restarts a boss fight and the last two bosses has you do a QTE and then you finish off them off...when 95% of the bosses can be beaten by just depleting their HP.

The combat itself is better in some ways, for one there is a soft lock on when Yagami is facing enemies all though no cycling between targets.

Fighting styles while interesting, I mainly just used Snake since it has an easy to use counterattack and the combos is enough to get me by hordes and bosses.

There are powerful EX moves that are easy to abuse especially one where you are downed and then activate to get a free attack that levels a health bar in. Bosses can't counter this. They also do a lot of damage making me never want to use Burst mode. There is also Mortal Reversals which are so easy to pull off and can can level any enemy or boss' life bar.

Bosses' only major advantage over you is that they can level your life bar before you can heal yourself and many health upgrades are locked.

The skill tree has pointless extra step like finding books.

Overall, aspects about LJ are interesting and improved but it's inferior to the previous game.

Second Sight Review

What was Free Radical doing after Timesplitters 2 and before Future Perfect? You got Second Sight. That's often what this game is known as however that didn't stop it from getting a passionate cult following in it's own right. I orginally played it back in 2018 and recall the story having have amazing cutscenes but really confusing as a whole but the gameplay is just on the "okay" side. Playing it again years later and my thoughts remain the same. What annoys me this time around is that the gameplay could've been more interesting and better thought out considering the premise of the game. The story is still very good but the gameplay could've been more than just a means to an end.

When it comes to the non interactive side of Second Sight, the game delivers. Timesplitters was always an episodic tale with a loose plot that conncects everything with the cutscene animation, charismatic characters and funny dialogue doing much of the heavy lifting. Second Sight was Free Radical's attempt at making an overarching plot before Future Perfect would introduce one to TS.

The story itself plays out like a psychological thriller. With the main character John Vattic slowly piecing together everything as the player is while he is going through the game. There's a fair number of red herrings and intentional misdirection with the story. It's fascinating just how in sync it all is. The player is often confused just as much as the main character is. The twist of the game even coincides with the game's very title too. There is some gaps in the backstory I wished were explored like what was the catalyst that caused John's initial hostility for psyhics and what the pentagon specifically did to trick him into coming to Siberia. The villain Hansen is also on the underdeveloped side too. In the grand scheme of things, these problems I listed are minor.

It also helps that cutscene animation and direction much like TS2 are great here. The visuals and cinematography hold up partnered with how expressive characters can be. Now there is an overarching plot backing everything. The voice acting is also solid. The music is very much Timesplitters sounding which also gives this game a weird identity all it's own. Like a film director hiring the same production team on his last movie but now telling a different kind of story with his next one.

The story is very much the selling point here so I will avoid talking about specific events as weird as it is for me.

Gameplay is not terrible but a mixed bag if not just a means to an end. The game is basically a cross between Metal Gear Solid 2 with it's stealth and James Bond Everything or Nothing with it's auto aim heavy shooting.

However much like MGS2, the tranq gun you get pretty much bypasses any stealthing you will need to do since it's one and done solution for incapcitating guards. Guards don't wear helmets or protective gear like MGS2. What's worse here is that the guard AI can be inconsistent and partner that along with cameras never giving sound cues when near them can lead to many unfair detections. In MGS2, a guard has to call in on their radio and if the player attacks him during the call, the guards will sweep the area. In Second Sight, this is very inconsistent and can lead to hivemind stealth game AI that the genre can be infamous for. You don't even get timers of when the guards will give up the search. Cameras in MGS2 often let the player know they were close by them.

Another thing that defreniates Second Sight from MGS2 is the physic powers but most of your problems outside of the occasional puzzle can be solved with just firearms. You can't use powers and guns at the same time either. The only power that is useful during combat is healing. This ability and the very frequent checkpoints are two contributing factors are as to why many myself included were able to finish the game.

The shooting is weird in that it has Timesplitters' excellent sound design for weapons but it doesn't have the exaggerated damage animations when shooting various areas of the body. The only way to reliably kill enemies is to aim for the head or near the head which in a sense, you do get more freedom over where you can aim by comparison to the aforementioned Everything or Nothing. You don't get as much by comparison to Resident Evil 4 which would come a year later.

The enemy roster is also lacking. It consists of infantry soldiers, psyhics with guns and super soliders you fight only once. The only real enemy you have in combat is getting mowed down by an overwhelming amount of machine gun fire and not being able to find a safe spot to heal.

There is also random, "how was I supposed to know that" moments. With the computer puzzle in the Conspiracy mission being the most well known example. There isn't an overwhelming amount but they can really pop up when they happen.

Overall, the story is very interesting but gameplay is an okay means to an end that could've amounted to much more.

Playstation All-Stars Battle Royale Review

I remember hearing the announcement of PS All Stars back in 2012. What I mainly remember about the game before it's release was it being chastised for being a Smash Bros clone at all, how Sony was "ripping off" Nintendo and how Playstation IPs were never popular enough to sell a fighter and all that jazz. I sort of played the game for a little bit back in high school but I never really thought much about it. Over the years, the game did slowly start to garner a vocal cult following who really enjoyed it. The recent release of Astro Bot felt like it was echoing this very game. On top of finding a used PS3 copy for super cheap as well as being a celebration of Playstation before the Last of Us and Sony's 1st party games getting big with the PS4, I decided to give the game a proper chance. It also has that, "Marvel before the MCU" feel which gives PS All Stars even more mystique. I'm also way more experienced with the IPs in this game now than in 2012.

I'll preface this review by saying that I find Smash Bros very boring and every time I play those games, I can't for the life of me get into them. I'm used to fighting games being about health bar deleption and being the last man standing. Every time I play Super Smash, I'm confused or find those games have way too much going on.

Much to my surprise, PS All Stars is brimming with personality. This in large part could might be due to me being a life long fan of the brand but there is so much here that I don't recall Smash having. Like having fully voice acted cutscenes or dynamic and over the top stages. The latter especially have some crazy things going on during a match like having a Chimeran Widowmaker, the Iron Maiden from Twisted Metal 2012 and the Hydra from God of War coming out from the background and attacking the characters.

What sealed the deal for me was playing as the various characters with their movesets and abilities doing an incredible job at representing the characters' respective franchises. It's very easy to tell Superbot loved and did their homework with the various series that these characters are from. To name some examples Kratos has his attacks with the Blades of Chaos and Cestus from God of War 3 as well as the Spear and Shield from Ghost of Sparta. Jak has all of his moves and weapons from his inital run of games like spin dash, uppercut, hoverboard, as well as blaster rifle and the various weapons from Jak 3. Ratchet has his combuster and rocket launcher as well as wrench for melee. Daniel Fortesque has his axe throw, shield bash, and hammer. Evil Cole his electric grenade, amp, shockwave and grappling hook. Firebird Strike is better here than it was in Infamous 2 itself.

The third party characters like Ninja Theory Dante and Raiden all have their moves that would pop in the respective games a couple months later which is interesting foreshadowing.

Needles Kane and Radec feel realized despite not being playable in their respective franchises. Sly was the worst to play as but had the best arcade mode story.

This transitions to the negatives. The arcade mode while novel doesn't really amount to much than characters going to some dimension fighting another character and then having it end like some dream. Sly is the best since him looking for pages for the Thievious Racconous is something he would and could fit inbetween Sly 1 and 2.

However the biggest negative and of course what destroyed the game especially from a competitive side is the "health system" or should I say lack there of. In PS All Stars, the fighters are pretty much immortal until a super move is activated. It goes up to Level 3. The massive problem with this system is, that you don't even need to go up to level 3. A level 1 super is already enough to insta kill another fighter. Unless if you are dealing with Ratchet and to some degree Fortesque's level 1 super, they will always be enough to rack a decent kill count so this system is now just a weak gimmick. This might be fine in single player if you want to get as high of a kill count as possible but in multiplayer, which is what the Smash Bros titles made their name off of can be very problematic.

There are solutions to this I'm surprised the devs never thought of. Why does a game that has a block button not let you block super attacks? Fighting games have always done this. Have Level 3 supers be unblockable but very hard to acheive. Maybe even have supers be parried too giving players who don't have one lined up a fighting chance. You can also have two level 1 supers activated at the same time and whoever wins a frantic button tapping mini game gets the kill. Level 1 supers can be blocked, Level 2 supers can be parried, and only Level 3 can give the player the abilty to do insta kills but they have to be really good. You can also counter act Level 3 attacks with Level 1 and 2 supers being able to nullify the former.

Overall, I did enjoy the game but the subject matter and fan service carried it.

Far Cry: Primal Review

When I originally played Far Cry 4, I ignored Primal due to the lukewarm reception it got at the time of release. Playing FC4 again made me convinced that I would drop Primal in a few hours and then move on to something else. Much to my surprise, I actually enjoyed the latter game much more than I ever thought I was going to. Sure, it doesn't reinvent the wheel and it's still an FC game with the foundation laid by the 3rd game. What makes Far Cry Primal different and at the very least has me putting it above 4 is due to the changes in combat and not having nearly the same inconviences as the latter game did.

The story was just okay, I don't normally like reading subtitles in games especially but the whole story felt like a bunch of loose favors which felt episodic plots that didn't have much to with each other. I often just zoned out during cutscens until the story missions started. I also didn't really notice Takkar going on a big journey of any kind, he just felt like an errand boy for much of the game. I didn't even roll credits on the game either but according to the various internet walkthroughs I used, it seems I techically finished the main campaign when I completed the Batari Temple mission. I wasn't engaged enough by the story to do the 100% complete ending.

When you boot up the game, the visuals have a high amount of fidelity to them and it looks good now almost 10 years later. The premise is unique in that it takes place in the prehistoric age where characters seemingly speak a made up language. It does have much of FC3 and 4's mechanics like the stealth, the weapon limit, throwable weapons, the mantling which is mainly effective at fixed points and crafting. This is all pretty done before.

What does set this game apart is the fact that the weapons are not based around 20 different interchangeable hitscan guns where all you do is point, shoot and enemies die. The weapons in FC Primal are projectile and you need to be careful and line up your shots a lot more by comparison it's predecessors. You don't even get a slo mo ability to help you line up shots like the Horizon games either. There might be some aim assist particularly bullet magnatism used but it's never too noticeable in the moment.

On top of this, you only get 4 weapons to use with only the club getting a different variation. Each one serves a specific purpose. The bow and arrow is the weakest in terms of raw damage but one who is good with headshots can be very effective at actively getting kills. The spear does a lot of damage but you can only hold up to 4 and they are not as plentiful as arrows. Clubs are good for close range combat, however it's more of a last resort and is better used on two enemies or some animals. They can be thrown at enemies which is a good last resort tactic.

What also helps makes combat dynamic that even with upgrades, you won't always have enough crafting materials on hand. During a harder wave and challenge, you might run out of ammo to create and starting running around the map to pick up spears and arrows to kill enemies with. The continue system does respawn you with all the materials you had before you died instead of at the checkpoint which would annoy me but what helps is that due to the amount of spears, arrows, crafting materials and clubs scattered all over the camps, these sections can feel doable.

Other improvements over FC4 are that the skill tree doesn't make you do side quests to unlock them, you meet a quest giving npc, they unlock a specific skill tree and you can invest points. Search animations can be disabled and healing leafs and items are much more plentiful.

The negatives are that the missions can feel dull and samey. The combat is well made but the main missions is just consists of errands, fetch quests and following trails. There are some more interesting ones like setting a camp on fire, storming a camp with an elephant(it's not optional like in FC4), and destroying a moon but they tend to be the exception.

Animals are an annoyance here than adding to the world like in FC3. You want to run to an objective, wack some animals chasing you with a club and hope they either buzz off or you kill them. You can solve this problem the exact same way every time. Making them more of a small obstacle that gets in the way than a challenge.

Bosses are terrible. They are damage sponges who rely on doing lots of damage to you and enemies backing them up than being an actual challenge on their own. There is a few of them but UII was such a damage sponge that I wonder if that fight was playtested. When I beat them it felt like I got lucky than because of skill.

The game also crashes from time to time when fast travelling to your home base on PS5 which of course is annoying.

Overall, while FC Primal isn't a game I consider mindblowing, I'm surprised I played more of it than I ever thought I was going to. The combat is one of the more interesting in the series and carries the game.

Super Crush KO(Nintendo Switch) Review

This was a game that randomly popped up in my radar. I heard it was a "character action" game of sorts that released in today's gaming industry. Due to me checking out a traditional beat em ups of any kind as long as there is no soulslike or roguelike or lite elements in it's design, I will happily check it out. As a whole, I really enjoyed this game even it does have your usual combo driven beat em up trappings.

It may have the rankings and style system of games like Devil May Cry and Bayonetta but this is very much the combat system found in the Guacamelee games. It's basically a combination of both those titles. There are differences like how the special attacks can only be done again after getting pickups from enemies upon death and how you get super powerful energy beam attack that you also get by killing enemies. You also get health pick ups when you kill enemies too but it's not so prevelant that it feels like the game showers you with them.

You also get a ranged firearm that shoots lasers out similar to Ebony and Ivory in DMC. With the dodge and the aforementioned special moves having a directional input and a button press like Guacamelee. It however doesn't have Guacamelee's color coded enemies where specific moves can only damage the enemy.

There is also a number of stage hazards like moving sawblades, lasers and disappearing platforms to contend with as well.

So while Super Crush KO borrows from other games, it does have it's own ideas going on.

It is a short game but of course this is a game that is meant to be played over and over again to get higher rankings but with that said, an average playthrough where you get don't get the highest of scores is still going to be a moderate challenge. Everyone's skill levels varies of course but there are no difficulty levels and there is also a limited continue system as well. On top of all this, the enemy waves get more and more intense as well as dealing with the stage hazards makes the game not something you can sleepwalk through.

This is a title where your skill level is average at best might test you especially when you can't die and keep respawning at checkpoints and eventually win. I'm mixed on the lives system because I believe they exist for the devs to hide how short their game is. With that said, the lives system did feel like it put pressure and motivated me to be better in combat so I won't have to restart at the start of a level. There were times where it felt like I wanted to quit and eventually drop the game but the stage to my surprise wrapped up before I could lose another one.

The stages also don't really drag on it for that long so it helps counteract the lives system.

Despite it's short length, Super Crush KO does actively introduce new enemies to shake things up like ones with shields, breath fire, bounce around, fly, shoot slow moving projectiles or bigger enemies that shoot multple in 8 directions. What helps is that these attacks are well telegraphed due to the red lines knowing when to move out of the way. The waves only get bigger and longer as the game goes on so it feels like overcoming a massive obstacle when getting to the end of a level.

My only big issue with the game is that like many combo driver beat em ups especially the DMC and Bayonetta kind is that doing the complex moves and getting higher style rankings just seems like something I have to go out of my way for not in the heat of the moment. Trying to worry about style rankings while trying to survive tough enemy waves and stage hazards is not worth doing. The challenge doesn't make me want to do the more complex tactics, I want to use the easy to dish out moves much faster and then dodge like no tomorrow. If I try to do more complex moves, I might lose more health and get a game over and lose a life.

The bosses are just...okay. Not terrible and they get the job done for being bosses but them relying on hordes for back up diminishes them as a threat since they need goons to help them. It also distracts from the actual fight itself being a challenge since you got to deal with hordes and well as the boss. It doesn't help that all of them are the same design with different colors. They don't take that long to defeat and their attacks aren't too confusing to dodge as well them giving health drops after damaging them so they are tolerable at least.

Overall, in spite of those two big issues, Super Crush KO is a well made and enjoyable beat em up. For a game I randomly heard about and mainly bought because it was a quick game to beat, I had more fun with it than I thought I would've.