Velvet Crowe

Game Junkie - 1121 Game Ratings

Member Since: 03 Jun 2010

Location: Edmonton, Alberta, Canada

Age: 31

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63 T5

Blue Stinger (1999) - 27 Nov 2023 "If I were to be rating this strictly on its gameplay I'd be harsher. There are A LOT of obnoxious design decisions that both trivialize core mechanics but it also manages to create setpieces and structure that's just utterly painful in how much the game wastes your time with slow movement and obnoxious enemy design/placement. But the game is so full of cheesy charm and wacky ideas with a really neat setting that I couldn't help but love its idiosyncrasies, even if that's covered in shit."

83 T9

Ori and the Blind Forest (2015) - 27 Nov 2023 "I don't think the visuals are that impressive once it settles on its style since it doesn't want to push its visuals beyond coherency and a few sweeping setpieces. The plot also doesn't do much beyond its opening scene and the environmentalist theming is superficial. But despite all that, the game has such a strong toolkit for you to play with and level design that both encourages you to experiment and has some level of challenge that elevates it above most metroidvanias."

55 T4

Yuppie Psycho (2019) - 16 Nov 2023 "I dig the novelties and general vibe of this game a lot but the gameplay consists of a lot of waiting where there's no interaction with dangerous elements and managing resources that are given to you generously. The plot has a lot of solid hooks and it does a good job producing its overall mystery but the actual resolutions come off as half-baked and the game does not seem to care much about the individuality of any who's suffering under this setting so the narrative as a whole is disappointing."

26 T1

Lost Reavers (2015) - 01 Nov 2023 "On its face Lost Reavers is neat in terms of what it is conceptually as a multiplayer game. In practice, the game is a dull gauntlet of bland enemies that just clumsily walk towards you in small numbers. Yet somehow, the actual shooting is a slog due to a slow retical and turn rates which makes it unsurprising most people just use melee. It's not like the game punishes you for doing this due wonky hitboxes, weak enemy design, and lazily put together level design."

63 T5

The Legend of Tianding (2021) - 01 Nov 2023 "This is a game with such a cool foundation that I wish it pushed harder. It has a solid move pool at the start, but the game never evolves this and enemies/encounters functionally never change from beginning to end. Level design instead tends to rely on wonky stage hazards and platforming which really do not play the to the game's strength, not to mention the absolutely dull side content and padding in its structure. But I thought the boss fights and general feel were solid enough to have value."

55 T4

Alien Cat (2020) - 28 Oct 2023 "It's about 10-15 minutes in length but I think it has a pretty good foundation when it comes to how it plays with physics and forcing you to play around it's rigid, extremely committal jump arcs. But considering its length, levels never really do anything particularly daring so I guess you uhh... get your $1 worth?"

51 T4

Inside (2016) - 18 Oct 2023 "Visually I find this game boring adopting an artstyle a lot of these pretentious "games are art" indie games do, but I will give it credit for how cool the use of foreground is in creating its style. But the game is defined by one-note, braindead puzzles that it often recycles and requires trial and error because the game is really shit at visual cues. The narrative is so bare to be uninteresting, and whatever it wanted to convey thematically is lost in a whole lot of nothing."

24 T1

Emily is Away (2015) - 12 Oct 2023 "The game is so lame because regardless of what you do your player character comes off like he can't get over his old high school crush and said crush is the most bland, boring person imaginable. As something supposedly trying to capture the 00's, it doesn't seem to care enough to express anything about the culture of that era beyond basic MSN lingo and looking past that the most they could muster for any character is basic biographical information at best. A real waste of an hour."

55 T4

Soulstice (2022) - 10 Oct 2023 "Ignoring the cheesy and lame narrative, I think Soulstice has a lot about it that's interesting such as its style system and the way countering works but that's undercut by some REALLY bad design choices. For one, physics are too rigid which makes air combos one note regardless of how you use weapon switching. The damage field gimmick is obnoxious because of how it discourages offense and certain enemy design makes it all the more frustrating, not to mention some bosses are the WORST."

44 T3

Tales of Arise (2021) - 10 Oct 2023 "Frustrating narrative where any time it lands on an interesting premise it ruins it with the dumbest twist imaginable and it just gets progressively worse. Gameplay doesn't offer much either. Defense is entirely reliant on a dodge mechanic but without any actual mobility mechanics so most of your movement during battles is going to be spamming dodge. There's some cool things you can do with aerial transitions, but enemies are so one note and boring with obnoxious boss design I just didn't care."

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