Recent reviews by mfinbrick

Game Science did a remarkable job adapting the classic Journey to the West story. They masterfully captured the essence of the legendary tale, blending mythological elements with fresh, modern twists that keep the experience engaging for both newcomers and fans of the original. The characters are richly developed, and the narrative seamlessly weaves together the epic journey, with all its trials and lessons, into a beautifully crafted world. Their attention to detail and respect for the source material is evident, making the game a standout homage to this timeless story. I am excited to see if they plan on rolling out a DLC in the future.

However I still have to give the game a thumbs dumb for a few reasons. The first reason is the playstyle from chapters 4-6. In chapters 1-3 the team did a fantastic job with all the mechanics and it was fun to try out different abilities. Once you get into chapters 4-6 a lot of the fun playstyle went out the door and the game turned mostly into spam dodging and relying on light attacks. Even when it came to gourds in the first half of the game I felt confident to get off a heal while in the back half of the game not so much.

My second reason is the consistent use of losing damage in cut scenes/un-skippable animations. Even when you get a perfect perfect dodge, bosses would still get off an un-skippable attack that would drain ¼-½ your life. Experienced this mostly right after I would get a successful gourd/heal off. Going deeper many bosses in the second half of the game would repeatedly do this during their second, third and or even fourth phase.

It was interesting that within some of the phases of boss fights that there would be checkpoints I do not know why they felt the need to do this. This was seen with fulfilling the secret bosses throughout chapters 1-5 that would help you unlock the final secret ‘good’ ending. Which even once you complete you have to go and finish the ‘bad’ ending to still complete the game.

If you like to 100% games, you will have to farm for certain items to complete achievements. Some of the items are NG+ or even worse RNG, which means you might not get them for who knows how many tries. Some of them you can't just rest at a shrine and come back and try again because they only appear every half an hour and you have to go to another shrine and come back after said half an hour. One item has only 5 trees from which you can farm over three locations in the whole game which alone took me over 5 hours with 3 Golden Carp curio’s equipped.

Lastly this AAA game when it first released had some bugs not many, but what made me the most upset was spending 20 hours loading through different cut scenes just to continue the game on my first playthrough. This factor alone is why I have to sadly give this game a thumbs down. (I will give it a thumbs up in the review, but if you read this I am more on the thumbs down side) If I did not have to spend 40+ hours of my life getting through cut scenes or farming items to 100% the game my stance would change. I still think what Game Science released was one of a kind and something future games for the next decade will study and incorporate… build upon.

My last note is while this game was super interesting and fun to play I hope when/if a DLC comes out that new cycles has a little bit more flexibility or new in-corporations to the game so it is not so repetitive. I can not be mad/upset or judge a game based on this, but I believe the game would have been better off if they only kept this version to the first 3 chapters and added more lore within + a DLC. Then in the upcoming years released a part 2 to the game for chapters 4-6 with a separate DLC. I do not also understand why journalist where no naive with their articles before release they truly are suckers for stating what they believed and got it all wrong. You should definitely try out this game if you are into single player action/souls like games, after you play it you will understand that this game is in a category of it’s own.

Sorry for this yap fest. Is this GOTY??? Maybe because of the publicity and units sold, but I think it will win the other categories such as best narrative/soundtrack etc.. While Space Marine 2 takes home GOTY.

---{ Graphics }---
🔲 Awful
🔲 Bad
🔲 Will do
🔲 Decent (Nothing special)
✅Stunning
✅ Visual Masterpiece (if I wasn’t playing on a toaster maybe)

---{ Gameplay }---
🔲 Bad
🔲 Okay
🔲 Nothing special
🔲 Good
✅ Very good
✅ Try not to get addicted

---{ Audio }---
🔲 Bad
🔲 Not too bad
🔲 Decent
🔲 Good
🔲 Beautiful
✅ Masterpiece

---{ PC Requirements }---
🔲 Potato
🔲 Decent
🔲 Fast
✅ High-end PC
🔲 Ask NASA if they have a spare computer

---{ Difficulty }---
🔲 Just press a bunch of buttons
🔲 Easy
🔲 Significant brain usage
✅ Easy to learn / Hard to master
🔲 Difficult
🔲 Dark Souls
✅GOW/Sekiro

---{ Grind }---
🔲 Nothing
✅ Only if you care about 100%
🔲Average grind level
✅Too much grind
🔲 Insanity

---{ Story }---
🔲 None/Not important in this game
🔲 Bad
🔲 Average
🔲 Great
🔲 Well written
✅ One of the best i've had the pleasure of playing

---{ Price }---
🔲 Free
🔲 Cheap
🔲 Under priced
✅ Acceptable price
🔲 Overpriced
🔲 Complete waste of money

---{ Bugs }---
🔲 Never heard of
🔲Minor bugs
✅ Can get annoying
🔲 Proceed with caution

---{ Length }---
🔲 Very Short (0 - 4 hours)
🔲 Short (4 - 10 hours)
🔲 Average (10-30 hours)
✅ Medium (30-50 hours)
🔲 Long (50-100+ hours)
✅ For 100%: 130 hours
🔲 No ending

---{ ? / 10 }---
🔲 1
🔲 2
🔲 3
🔲 4
🔲 5
🔲 6
🔲 7
✅ 8
🔲 9
🔲 10

A fah-fah-fah-fantastic sequel to the stick of truth. Follows the story of the new kid and has some interesting combat mechanics, but I still prefer the stick of truth as the definitive south park game to play.

Never fart on a man's balls!!!

My mom said if this review receives more than 10 community awards she’ll give me her credit card so I can buy black tar heroine on the black market


Edit: Can't believe y'all actually gave some, much appreciated! <3

I've only played the game for like 45 minutes, but it has really good mechanics and a great discord culture I really enjoy, I can not wait to dive deeper into the game!

Animal Well is like if someone jumped a magical smurf, robbed them, held them upside down to shake pixel art magic from their body. There is also a pinch of perplexing puzzles, and a whole lot of “What the heck am I doing?” into a pot and stirred vigorously. It’s not just the brain-bending puzzles that make this game stand out. It’s the atmosphere. The pixel art is good, and the sound design is immersive, you might find yourself hearing ambient animal noises long after you’ve turned off your brain and just sat there thinking "what do I even do". It took me 60 hours to 100% with no walk-through/guides and 10-12 hours just to find a flipping candle I needed. Yeah I definitely suck at games, but that’s Animal Well for you, an indie game that had myself questioning life choices, but in the most delightful way possible. Worth the 25$, can't wait to explore the deeper secrets that I still have yet to discover.

Bought this game since I did go to Japan recently and it had a good aesthetic for horror and incorporating how the Tokyo subway system truly is. If you have visited the country and need a little nostalgia for an hour or two then highly recommend!

A better version of cookie clickers or banana in my opinion

Interesting game... not even a game actually just a pyramid scheme for the devs to profit and make money. It is cool that it follows the csgo approach in getting skins every so often, however not so much once you realize only the profitable skins are given out to the devs.

Game had a good story line, not many different paths the story can lead into though. I wish there was an English option, maybe I missed it, still a pretty aesthetic game. Badge's are also appealing too.

Pretty simple game with a good atmosphere. It's a fun game to wind down with, defiantly no need to grind. In 5.5 hrs of total game play I was able to get every steam achievement. None were to easy to get and none were to difficult. I only think that if you end up eating the pizza twice you should get two chances to not get caught. I only noticed when I had 1 crown I would be given a chance, but with two I never got a free escape. Still a great game.