Recent reviews by NikkiDarkMatter

Decent, but not worth $20. Unlike the base game, this DLC essentially features one new boss fight, and several "boss fights" that are just regular enemies with slight gimmick additions. It was fun for sure, and I liked the characters and story, but $20 is very steep for this DLC. Combine that with the DLC characters not being usable in the base-game until after you've beaten both the main story and DLC, and it simply wasn't worth it.

Definitely not amazing by any stretch of the imagination, but it's another very fun jaunt with the Persona 5 crew with likable new characters and a story that, while somewhat predictable, is still engaging and emotional, as we've come to expect of the Persona series. I feel a lot of the reviews were expecting another Persona 5 Royal, which this definitely isn't. But if you've played Royal and want more enjoyment out of the world of Persona, give it a shot, it's a fun one.

Didn't get a chance to sink my teeth into it long since I have to make a decision before the Steam refund period is over, but so far the game feels very limiting. In addition, it is rather clunky to control on Steam Deck, and the developer implemented a Proton "fix" that involved disabling the in-game music entirely, only further increasing the lack of engagement. Would definitely recommend other zoo simulation games more than this.

I had to sell my cat, my boyfriend, and that other crewmate I kinda liked to meet quota.

10/10, would meet quota again.

In Sound Mind is a game with a fantastic story that is, while not perfect, a full and immersive experience. You play Desmond Wales, a psychologist reviewing his patient's cases as he himself is being driven to insanity by a mysterious force. Every single case is represented by a tape, where you play through the distorted versions of their memories and experiences.

The pros:
- Phenomenal story
- Great horror elements, no cheap jumpscares
- Great puzzles
- One of the few games to tackle the subject of mental health well
- Plenty to collect for those looking to 100%
- Soundtrack by The Living Tombstone
- Adorable cat
The cons:
- Mixing multiple gameplay genres causes it to miss the mark on some of them
- Horror aspects are hit-or-miss, with some chapters excelling at being scary and others being more action-focused, similar to Resident Evil (if you enjoy this then this may be a plus, I personally was expecting more horror)
- RIP the cat

Overall, the game is a fantastic experience that I would recommend to anyone who is looking for a deeper experience with some horror elements and enjoys singleplayer shooters, puzzle games, or platforming, since this game has elements of all three. I found that the platforming was the least exciting of the three, with the shooter and puzzle elements shining the brightest and the platforming personally being relatively frustrating. However, it ultimately did not detract from the experience enough for me to come even close to not recommending this game. Go forth, and remember, Desmond: YOU are In Sound Mind.

NOTE: This review is for the game when it works smoothly and servers are available. As demand has been much higher than usual for the devs, I trust they will fix the server issues, and so my review is positive. If you are not patient enough to find/get a lobby, and you don't know if people will still play by the time the servers are fixed, I do NOT recommend this game to you specifically.

That aside:
Among Us is a fun, quirky, handcrafted game made by a small team. PuffballsUnited brought me to this game, and I genuinely appreciate the Henry Stickmin Collection bringing attention to this game. If you don't want to read the whole thing, the quickest way I can describe Among Us is Trouble in Terrorist Town's murder and chaos meets Town of Salem's witch hunt trial system.

In Among Us, you play in a group of 5-10 crewmates (The group size will depend on the lobby and if you are playing with friends or randoms; at the time of writing, most random lobbies will be nearly full relatively quickly. Finding a group of 10 friends is... more challenging. Also, 4 players is POSSIBLE, but not recommended, even by the devs.) with a simple goal: Run around a ship, complete tasks, and make the ship go brrrr. However, there are impostors on board (by default, 1 for 6 or less players, and 2 for 7 or more) who are out to make your lives difficult. Armed with a kill button and sabotage methods, the goal is simple for the impostors, too; kill everyone on the ship, without getting caught. There is a voting system that allows you to vote to remove crewmates from the ship, should you have reasonable suspicion that one is an impostor.

The catch with Among Us is that nobody can talk during the main gameplay. Instead, meetings occur when either A. A body is found or B. A crew member calls an emergency meeting at a designated location in the game. These are the parts where the group can vote to kick someone off the ship (or into a pit of lava, in the case of the Polus map). But be careful; vote the wrong person off and you're simply making it easier for the impostors to finish their murder spree.

Of course, with a simple system like this comes intricacies. The crewmates have certain tasks that will display animations, which can prove their innocence; the impostors can kill them during these lengthy tasks and often get away with it for free. The impostors can use vents to move around the ship and secure sneaky kills; the crewmates can report vent usage if they see it and vote you off because you thought they didn't see you. The crewmates have the numbers advantage; the impostors have the tools to kill you all without a body ever being found.

All in all, Among Us is a fantastic little game with a ton of replayability due to the fact that the deception, roles and tactics will vary each and every game. If you're not into playing against your friends or you are vehemently against lying, even in a video game, skip this one; otherwise, come visit the Skeld and be among your friends. Are you gonna stab them, or are you a good noodle? Only one way to find out.

Back in Early Access, three years ago, I wrote a review for this game. In it, I highlighted some key criticisms and ultimately could not recommend Skul in its current state. However, I stated then in my review that "the foundation is all there", and that I would not be refunding the game in hopes that some of the criticisms are improved upon further along in development.

So how does current Skul fare compared to my review from 3 years ago? Very, very well.

Pros:
- Engaging skulls. Skul's main gimmick is executed perfectly and feels fun to play around, giving you a lot of interesting skulls to play as that are all inherently very different.
- Great movement basis, giving you plenty of options. Double dash and double jump means you're constantly moving.
- Great boss fights. Now that I have beaten some of them, compared to my previous review, I can fully say they are satisfying to learn and even more satisfying to defeat.
- Controls very smoothly. While I have not played on PC recently, I can 100% say that with controller on Steam Deck, it plays smooth as butter. Everything feels fluid and dynamic. And when you get into the groove, you really get into the groove.
- Great item variety. Back in Early Access, I found that no item I picked up ever seemed to make a significant difference in how I played or how powerful I felt. I can now say with certainty that even Common items make a big difference in your power level, making the game much more satisfying. Combine that with the fact that you constantly are forced to choose between several items that could improve your power level quite a bit, and I can say it is a very satisfying system. In addition, limiting the player to 9 items means that eventually, you do hit a power cap, and still need to rely on your skill, even if you curbstomp some early enemies or bosses.
- I have not completed the story, so no spoilers will be found here, but I can say so far that it is both cute and dark, which is a perfect balance of exactly what you would expect based on the trailers and splash art of the game.
- Excellent level design. In Early Access, one of my core criticisms were that there was very little map variety, statues/graves that made enemies unfairly punishing all while giving very little benefit to the player, and far too much enemy spam as opposed to a variety of enemies that would actually pose multiple angles of challenge. All of these things have been adjusted/changed quite a bit since Early Access: map variety feels much more dynamic and exciting, graves feel balanced and give me something to prioritize destroying while not punishing me heavily if I can't get to it immediately, and enemy variety has been increased enough that it feels fine when the game occasionally spams the same enemy at you since its not the norm.
- RNG mitigation and rogue-lite progression. Similar to Rogue Legacy, for fans of the rogue-lite genre, you can unlock permanent upgrades and unlocks for future runs as you get further on, such as ways to obtain alternate skulls and bonus items at the beginning of runs, and boons that power the player up to give just that little boost to get back to where you last lost the fight, meaning repeating through areas doesn't feel grindy and repetitive.
- Beautiful art style. That's all I can say, really, it's a gorgeous little pixel art game that never feels bad to look at.
Cons:
- Some of the level hazards feel irritating to fight around and can be very limiting for your combat capabilities, especially when some skulls focus so heavily on mobility. Additionally, because of the chosen color palettes, some hazards can be hard to tell from the background, and you may run into them before you even notice they exist. This is less irritating than it was in Early Access, and may just be a me issue, but I feel Rogue Legacy does hazards better as they always feel obvious, and are often optional. In this game, you have to kill every enemy to progress, unlike Rogue Legacy, which means that those random spikes on the walls are something you HAVE to work around as opposed to skipping them and moving on.
- As with any roguelite, poor RNG can still screw you over at times, and Skul's main area this problem shines is through the skulls. You can work with bad items in Skul, but some of the bad skulls are just bad, there's no other way around it. There are ways to mitigate this as well, including upgrading the skulls you like into better versions, however they require quite a few bones that you may just not be able to accrue by the time the game gives you the option, especially since it seems to place the opportunity to upgrade your skulls early in each area rather than late where you may have actually had a chance to accrue said bones.

In my original review, the cons list ended up being much more of a rant than an actual cons list, as some of the design decisions were incredibly frustrating and led to me putting the game down after only an hour of gameplay, a decision which gained a lot of flak at the time of writing the review 3 years ago. However, I am glad that some of my complaints seem to have been heard by the dev team, as I find the whole experience much more exciting and engaging to play than it was back in Early Access.

If you like games such as Rogue Legacy, Hollow Knight, and Dead Cells, I would highly recommend picking up this game now that it is a complete project and out of Early Access. I am deeply glad I saw the potential in this game and didn't refund it when I initially purchased it, despite my negative initial review. I knew I saw potential from this game back in Early Access, and I am elated to see that potential has been capitalized on. Give Skul a try. You won't regret it.

Likes:
- Driving
- Dickery with friends
- Lots of updates
Dislikes:
- Game is buggy
- New updates are more buggy
- Mechanics are clunky
- All of the fun advertised ♥♥♥♥ is expensive as hell
- PAY TO WIN SHARK CARDS (that don't even give that much, $50 for one great vehicle)
- Online is full of modders and jerks
- Story is meh at best
- Heists take up to an hour of prep to get a minute amount of cash
- Heists costs money up front to do, then usually don't make much more than what they cost

I don't recommend it. It can be fun at times but overall is a headache of an experience.

This may be released a little early. There's still a LOT of people complaining about performance issues and problems that I personally haven't experienced; remember however that if you buy the game and experience performance issues, you can refund it and come back when the issues are gone.

That said, I recommend this to anyone with a good gaming PC that wants a step up from their Age of Empires 2013 experience. This game is so much higher quality and the extra civs add a good bit, as well as plenty of quality of life improvements.

Remember when you used to play Bloons Tower Defense 5 in school, in the back of the computer lab, when you were supposed to be doing typing lessons?

Now take that nostalgic time and add MORE MONKEYS.

And then take that and add MORE BLOONS.

That's all I need to say, really. 10/10, buy the game.