All Unrecommended Games

Had a lot of potential but didn't come together. Its gorgeous, hand-drawn art and murderer's row of voice talent were great. But, for a game all about music, none of the songs felt melodic or especially pleasant to listen to. I liked the dialogue writing and some heavy topics were handled with care. The story itself was ok and there are a lot of potential branches (and romance options), but the core mystery was quite underwhelming.

Fun concept (build your own luck) but the gameplay just felt bland. Chancing into the perfect set of jokers between rounds is fun, but the actual gameplay is a mix of "Play", "Discard", and a bunch of luck. Other deckbuilders have more interactivity where you get to choose targets and ordering, but making poker hands (even if some of them are super high scoring) got old fast. I had a couple of super long runs where everything came into place, but I also had a bunch of duds where I didn't get anywhere. I feel like the "bad" runs in other roguelikes are still fun, but the ones in Balatro were just drags.

The best part was the combat (eventually) and the worst part was everything else. Once you get a few abilities under your belt the combat really starts to click, but by then you're halfway through the game. Everything else the adventure felt underbaked. The world was large, empty, and lifeless. The equipment system was an afterthought, removing any interesting decision making from everything but the ability loadout. Characters are fine if forgettable, but the whole plot is joyless and overwrought. The marquee boss fights are certainly unique, but they're overly long and are more spectacle than substance. For a mainline FF title, it has remarkably little going for it.

Some interesting tactical gameplay buried under an abysmal Switch port. I liked that there were different factions and the campaign runs built up an army over time, but the fact that you could recruit from any pool meant you just had less synergy than if you were constrained to the one you picked. I liked the hex grid and each character having abilities, which helped keep battles fairly fresh. I have a feeling this would have eked out a 3 stars if I had played on Steam w/ a mouse, but I just couldn't keep playing using the controller interface.

Sort of an interesting little physics sim, but the physics are all floaty and gummy. Has sort of a goose game / katamari chaos charm, but lacks enough cohesion to make it particularly worthwhile. Some funny interactions, but not something I needed to spend more time with.

Good music, decent writing, and a fun presentation unfortunately fail to prop up a lackluster combat system. it's neat in theory, but is too easy until it becomes crushingly hard (unless you do a lot of grinding). A lot of these concepts were probably revolutionary in 1994, but many don't translate well into the modern day. I ended up setting for a bad ending after an excruciatingly slow final boss that was more a waste of time than a challenge.

I liked the concept and art style a lot, but it didn't land for me. I liked the way that characters aged and changed over time, which felt novel. Building their stories over time also felt good. Combat was mostly good, but each campaign started pretty slowly until you got abilities for your characters. The overworld ate up a lot of time without being especially compelling. The dialogue was inconsistent at best and was noticeably procedurally generated; that made it occasionally charming, but stilted more often than not. End-campaign combat was the highlight and there was decent depth, but it took a while to get there. There are only three classes which I think limits the diversity of the gameplay. It felt like we saw most of the possible archetypes in our time with the game. Note: I played the whole thing in 4 player multiplayer, had some rough edges. We played a couple campaigns, enough to feel like we had seen most of what the game had to offer.

Had an interesting premise (tactics + tower defense) but fell short for me. Towers felt underpowered and unrewarding to use. Hero upgrades were ok, but the pool is pretty small so it all felt repetitive after a few runs. Metaprogression was also fairly uninteresting. Cool idea that didn't stick the landing.

A neat concept (audio-only game), but doesn't quite stick the landing. Combat is repetitive and audio design is surprisingly spartan for game that's literally only audio.

This stretches the definition of "game"- it's more of a guided meditation with dialogue choices. Unfortunately, not something I'm looking for...

Cute art and music coupled to an ok story and lacking gameplay. Bits of it were certainly charming and it captured summer well, but didn't do it for me overall.

Loved the art direction and tolerated the gameplay. There were some puzzles, but mostly simple running and jumping. There's some implied story, but it didn't do much for me. The art and music are great though, taking much inspiration from INSIDE and Journey. It's relaxing enough, but not altogether unique.

An interesting concept whose execution screams "budgetary problems". The story is paced terribly with no sense of direction and hardly any arc. The characters are all joyless and mostly generic. Gameplay is interesting at first, but never goes anywhere; there aren't enough abilities to keep things fresh. It's also the same few enemies and environments the whole game, which gets pretty stale.

While the environments look ok, the fox doesn't control well and the dialogue is pretty poorly written. It attempts to pull at heartstrings, but is more frustrating than compelling.

Though hailed as both one of the best modern platformers and a very hard game, I think this lives up to neither title. The platforming wasn't very compelling, the collectibles useless, the difficulty was sporadic (but mostly not bad) and the bosses were miserable. The game feels unfocused and uninspired. I simply don't understand the praise it gets. Each world had ~1 level I thought was neat and fun. The rest were mostly exercises in pointless frustration.

This is a very faithful remake of a classic 2D game I've never played. Though the graphics are nice, the game suffers from an aged simplicity. Not that every game needs to have all the bells and whistles of a modern RPG, but this one felt a little _too_ stripped down. I liked that gear choices were straightforward and abilities were interesting enough. But, the game got off to an _incredibly_ slow start - the first 5 hours, depending on your character selection, you have no abilities at all; just light attack and heavy attack. It's great if you want to mindlessly wander around and whack things, but left something to be desired. The game opens up after the first class change and brings a little more strategic depth. Mostly it was just fun to turn my brain off during a personally busy month, but not something that'll stick with me.

Neat little game. I liked the idea of combining exploration and inventory into one system. Plus, being able to cache and improve recipes was fun. The controller support was pretty good, but the game got pretty repetitive and tedious. Fun idea, but I didn't want to play much more of it.

On paper, I should have loved this game. It's routinely hailed as one of the best games in my favorite genre and it's a remaster with a bunch of QoL features. But dang it if it wasn't a total slog! There's a huge amount of backtracking in the levels (there are 50+ story battles but only ~20 maps). You can't mix and match skills between classes, so there's not a lot of theory crafting - it's mostly "pick the best 4 skills for a given class". There's also a distinct difference between unique units and generics (the former are much stronger). You get so many generics that it's never really worth training anyone else. And, there are still some glaring QoL misses, despite the progress there. There's a ton of characters and classes to find, but much of it is locked away behind long, grindy sidequests. I'm sure that's fun for some people, but I wasn't into it. The story is long, but not especially impactful. While there are lots of branches in the narrative, I don't feel like all the branches add much; they just dilute what little story there is. At its core, the gameplay is pretty fun, if a little slow to start. Rewinding time is a great feature that I wish more SRPGs had. But, the games that learned from it and came after it are much better.

Neat concept, but gameplay didn't keep me hooked (pun intended). I liked the progression well enough, but the shooting was tiresome and there wasn't enough variation in the fishing. But, it's a cute concept!

An interesting concept, but the gameplay itself left something to be desired. I liked the vibe of the text-based exploration, but it was more frustrating than fun. The story was interesting enough, and told interestingly, certainly.

It's a well-tread concept implemented snappily, but forgettably. There's a lot of named enemies, but they don't seem to be different in significant ways. Gameplay got pretty same-y over time. That said, I liked the writing a lot and there was more level variety than I expected (there's a lot of environments vs things like Hotline Miami which is mostly same-y houses). So there's things there, but I didn't stick with it.

There's a lot going on here. I can see that it's built on the bones of a great game, but I feel like a lot of that was lost in the remake. There are very lucid sections where everything is great, but they're few and far between with abysmal pacing. The is cool but doesn't make a ton of sense (having limited knowledge of the original). Combat is fun and customizing ability loadouts is good. It just sort of felt all over the place. Graphics and music were top tier though!

I have some complicated feelings about this one. As Pokemon games go, it's certainly novel. It tries a lot of new things and some of them are good! It's a little grindy and there are too many papercuts, but there's a lot of serious QoL. The core gameplay is still great, and while a lot of systems have been simplified, I think they made good choices. On paper, this would be the Pokemon game fans have been dreaming about for years and years. But, it dramatically falls short of its potential. The graphics are dreadful (and you can't _just_ blame the hardware; there are good looking Switch games) and the movement itself feels bad. There's boss battles are mostly button mashing and dodging, which is a weird way to climax a battling/catching game. The story is basically non-existent and all the side quests are just fetch quests. If this weren't a Pokemon game, it would be a bargain bin 5/10. It just hurts because there's _so_ much opportunity here, and this is what they came up with. I'm glad they're trying new things, but would really appreciate a higher quality bar.

Some nice art, but bad puzzles, platforming, and no story. I think pretending there's a story is worse than not having one. They're clearly inspired by Journey, but captured none of what made it enjoyable.

A hint of a story, boring combat, nice enough, if bland, environments. Cool glowing deer. But, really not much there.

Tiemframe _really_ stretches the "games as art" and "how much gameplay does a walking simulator need to be considered a game". There are a small number of text logs that let you piece together a bit of "story", but there's not enough there to be compelling. It also doesn't really use its "slow motion" theme in any meaningful way. Overall, just a miss.

Nice art and presentation, ok execution. Losing units feels really bad and there's not quite enough micro control to be able to feel like you can save them effectively.

As a measure of how well the game plays, I don't think it holds up. The controls are tough and the constant mindless chatter of friends gets grating quickly. There are cool secrets to find to help replayability, but it's pretty thin otherwise.

Fun to jump back into a classic, but I feel like there's not enough there in the gameplay to keep me interested. Exploring the levels is cool, but the goals are a little thin for a gameplay loop. It's no SSX, but I'm glad it got made.

Nice art, interesting time-travel-based battle system, but pretty slow otherwise. Story seemed ok, but trope-y. PC port wasn't great.

Very interesting. Certainly lots of potential, but extremely dated. The combat is pretty bad- there's a weird hybrid of turn based and live, but it feels like you don't have enough fine-grained control to do what the game asks of you. The writing is pretty good and there's certainly a lot of cool quests. But, there are too many party members and the leveling is super obtuse. I'd be curious to see what they'll do with a more modern approach.

I liked the premise, but didn't love the execution. There's a lot of information visually, and the upgrades aren't really compelling enough to give it a lot of replay value. It's also not clear how the damage profile changes in a response to killing a unit, which makes it hard to effectively plan attacks. Neat concept though!

Decent writing, but very slow gameplay. Didn't feel like it respected our time. Also, no real ending? It just stops without resolution. Mystery without resolution is just pointless.

I think I just have to come to terms with the fact that this genre of game just isn't for me. I don't feel like I have enough direction over what needs to be done. Then, I'll do something and a bunch of things will catch fire and there's too much information. The UI is good and there _is_ a lot of info to be had, I just didn't enjoy my short time here. Maybe worth revisiting sometime.

Sort of interesting premise, but the time limit, dialogue, and vague puzzles don't really gel w/ me. It's mostly a worse "Papers, Please". Too bad, because I liked the UI.

Really just not for me. There's not a lot of in-game info, no story, and the guns don't feel _that_ varied. There's also not really any progression. Controls felt tight and graphics were well done, but it's not something I vibed with.

Interesting background story, but I didn't find solving the puzzles as satisfying. Because of the internal bond logic, it makes it a little less straightforward to improve solutions- swapping steps doesn't always result in the same output. I also didn't love the way rotation and spawning worked in combination with line of sight manipulation. I can see myself coming back to it if I really wanted to sink some time into it little optimizations, but it was a bit of miss for me compared to Opus Magnum.

Very interesting premise, so-so execution. Interesting to investigate, solve puzzles, and fail some situations. But, the story sort of goes off the rails, and the branching narrative means there are lots of loose ends. Some of the puzzles are sort of duds, too. Neat idea, glad I played it in the end.

Backgrounds are nice, but navigating the world is very tedious. Story (what I saw of it) was engaging enough, but a little hammy. Combat was interesting and generally well-suited for touch controls, but had a little too much micro movement necessary.

Cool idea, good story execution, but lackluster combat and non-existent tech tree. Battles were too chaotic for me to micro well. Controlling groups around cover was really tough. Squad setup was interesting, but I didn't love it. Controls felt kludgy. Story was surprising good though (what little I saw of it, anyway)! And the destructible environments were very cool for an RTS.

Neat idea, but gameplay feels repetitive and fetch-questy. Neat way to do a very 3D experience though, and I liked the shark week crib.

Definitely a neat concept, but truly brutal learning curve. Battles are fast, but there's too much to watch on the screen and too many status conditions to reason about in real time for me to enjoy it. Definitly a neat premise, but not something I'd enjoy playing a lot in practice.

An interesting concept bogged down by a nonsense story without a conclusion (or really any resolution at all). There's not really any gameplay and it felt like a weird modern-art theater piece that doesn't make any sense at the end. To bill this as a "mystery game" is criminal.

Cute, but lacks depth. The mysteries are small and unimpactful. It's clearly aimed at a younger audience. Puzzles are ok, but too many trick questions and there's not enough happening in the game to make it worth finishing.

I liked the idea of this a lot, but it failed to come together for me. The story was decent and suitably grim/bleak, but the gameplay was clunky. As a tactics game, it's missing lots of QoL that other similar games have (especially FE), such as camera rotation, undo move, and attack range filters. Character upgrading is neat, but it's super stingy with poitns. Also, chracters can die/lieave at any time, which feels extra bad when you just dumped a ton of resources into them. The mechanics around the "oregon trail" part where you build strength in your crew is fine, but isn't well explained/super relevant. Some good ideas, but didn't land.

Neat idea with a nothingburger story.

I wanted very badly to like this game. On paper, it's perfect for me. But, in practice, it seemed like the puzzles were both too easy and too complex? They were unnecessarily hard to discover (a lot of wandering), but also too simple once I knew where the pieces were. The cast was interesting and the presentation was good though. Just didn't quite click.

It was cute enough, but I didn't find the gameplay quite engaginging enough to recommend. It was basically just tapping in the right order. I realize this is a stupid reduction (most games are some sort of tapping), but it didn't quite click with me.

I wanted to like it. Cool graphics and powers, but HDR was real bad it and it felt very dark. Also binary choices in games always feel hollow- you basically have to play one all the way. Then it's just punitive when you accidentally kill someone. Boss fights were slow, characters were largely weird/bland. Open world was pretty, but sort of lifeless. Style and presentation were good though, on the whole.

Neat concept. Cool UI. But, the mini map was frustrating and it felt like I couldn’t make informed decisions. Really frustrating to not be able to clearly see what enemy types were coming.

Cute concept, but tedious UI and logic that only sometimes makes sense. Nice way to waste an evening, but not much more.

Didn’t love it. The digivolution ways interesting (a big tree instead of a linear thing), but that left individual digimon feeling replaceable. Story was ok, but very slow to start. Dungeons were uninteresting and short. Script was fine, but full of cliche. Battle was either too easy or too hard, no in-between. All the quests are wandering around small levels talking to people or objects. I don’t feel like it excels in any of its focus areas. I also didn’t like how the levels were reset, so it was hard to get a sense of relative power level for your party.

Interesting idea but felt thin. Middling action game. Not enough enemy variety. Basically no story, despite sort of hinting at one? Some cool exploration and alternative endings, but you always had to get on track.

Cute little game. Art was nice, but puzzles were only ok. I think there's maybe some story there if you get bonus puzzle items, but I wasn't enjoying it enough to go for that. Neat concept, but not an interesting enough execution.

It was fun enough, but I didn't feel like I had a lot of interesting choices to make. There were maybe _too_ many skills and stuff? Also, lots of bum armor. Sort of played by the seat of my pants, so I didn't feel the need to dig in much. Decent enough, but there are better options

Cute idea, but execution falls a little flat. The main gameplay is navigating around a 2d star map, which could be really cool! But I feel like you don't get quite enough of your bearings to feel like you're really excelling. There's a bit of story and a bit of extra exploration, but it's not particularly satisfying. In post-game, there are harder side quests which were a little more interesting? They took a bit of actual logic and hunting to solve. But, there's just not enough there.

Great art style and music. Cutscenes felt surprisingly lifeless given how great the rest of the art was. Punches and hits felt substantive and powerful, so that's cool. Interesting mechanic where specials take health that you have to fight back for. But, its direct inspiration for old arcada games is ultimately why I didn't like it. It's frustrating to miss with attacks from point blank so often - the "3D" perspective is really hard to be accurate with. Bosses were fine, but ultimately gameplay was frustrating enough that I didn't finish after losing to the final boss twice. Just couldn't quite be bothered. Nice environments, though!

Cute, if simple, game. A little too shallow. Wish there was more to explore or more intersting tech choices. Could use a little more time to bake, I think.

Cool style, almost like playing "Kick-Ass". Had some interesting platforming sections, but the controls weren't tight enough to support those sections. Gameplay was really cool at first and then got pretty repetitive. Difficulty curve was either "pretty easy" or "way too hard". Story was a little cutesy, but a little to meme-y for my tastes.

A staggeringly complex game. I can see how others like it, but it's not for me. There's too much going on and it got pretty repetitious even in the short time I played it. There's certainly an impessive scope though!

Started playing this and honestly it's too creepy for me to enjoy it. Very spooky vibe, but not in a way I found compelling. I'm sure there's a lot more there, I just don't want to spend time seeing it.

Simplistic. Cute writing, but feels like a freeware game without any micro-transactions. Sounds good on paper, but ends up being sort of boring and hard to track what I should be doing with each character. They get stronger, but that doesn’t clearly translate into any actual benefit. I thought I was strong but kept failing a mission for unclear reasons, so I decided to be done.

What an interesting game. The scope an exploration were truly awesome. Very cool actually being able to fly around an entire galaxy and planet. Graphics were great. Sense of scale, both indoor and outdoor were cool. But, everything else was mediocre. All quests are generic fetch quests. There's only 1 space station in the entire universe. Base building is fine, but wasn't hard enough to be interesting. Definitely a "find your own fun game". Honestly, just a worse version of Subnautica. Doesn't matter if there's infinite things if they're all generically the same.

Beat the Good side story in ~ 4 hours. Evil side story was worse. I liked the idea of seeing the other side, but it didn't really execute. Ultimately, I think a thumbs down. It does have a good sense of "Gotta go fast", but the platforming in 3D is inconsistent and I died too many times that weren't my fault. The camera is pretty dreadful and the voice acting is similarly wooden. Music is decent and the plot under everything is ok. Chao are ok, but their systems are complicated and opaque. There are some cool levels, but there's a lot of asset reuse. Most boss fights are bad, as are the treasure hunt levels. Shadow is a cool character. There's a lot of content, but a lot of it doesn't feel well thought out.

UI was sluggish. Straightforward gameplay, though not too hard. Neat way to do resource management, though a little cumbersome (sort of like Factirio logistic networks). The mystery I played (AI) was fine, but underwhelming. I don't personally love games where I need to micromanage human needs. I liked that there was no combat though! But, if there were a little more automation it might have been better. It was a pain to expanse bases.

Really wonderful art and sound. Some decent puzzles. Cool boss variety. Regular enemy combat didn't really add anything to the game- felt oddly shoehorned. That, coupled with a story that felt very complex made for an experience that didn't quite hold my attention. Some cute writing though.

I just couldn't get into it. It's hard, but doesn't feel fair. Visuals are good, but a lot and make my eyes hurt a little. Can't really go fast and it's hard to explore or navigate. As someone who never really played the old game, there's no nostalgia here for me, just frustration.

Definitely an interesting game. It's interesting to see how, depending on what data is entered into the system, the story changes. I wish that had been made more clear though. It's basically a (slightly) interactive novel, which is interesting enough. Interesting commentary on modern surveillance states. Biggest points against it were inconsistent writing and the "game" not really being that good. The frame is great, but the actual experience of playing it is only ok.

Good visuals and great audio. Story was fine. Combat was ok, but repetitive. Only a few types of enemies. Skill system was a highlight. Lots of backtracking and replaying the same few areas. Repeated campaign and quests which weren't even great the first time around. Liked the meta parts of it, even if they weren't well explained. I think overall, it was more tedious than fun. Had nice parts though.

Didn't enjoy this as much as I thought I would. Good art and dialogue, but didn't really live up to its premise. Lots of setup, no satisfying ending.

This had a lot of potential and mostly failed to realize it. There's a lot of training Pokémon, but you don't keep most of the abilities you learn on them, so it feels like starting from scratch a lot (and wasted time). The levels are fairly empty like BBS, but flowmotion being a thing sort of helps justify that since you need space to zoom. They were also huge, which was impressive for originally being a 3DS game. They did a good job of not making the levels feel as repetitive as BBS, despite sharing maps. That said, Ven and co. felt fairly distinct, while Sora and Riku played like copies of each other (and most of the same abilities). The enemies were actiallly fairly well designed, but the bosses were mostly boring and/or frustrating. Combat also didn't feel like it had a lot going on. I was impressed by how many new worlds and characters were in this. It's also got good cutscenes and a lot of important story elements. Unfortunately, the rest of the game end up being more frustrated than fun.

I can see what they were trying to do here, but it didn't quite hit the mark. The controls are interesting, but the game is repetitive and feels slow. Music is neat, story could be cool, dialogue is pretty awful.

Interesting art, and I liked the notion of light and dark worlds that interact. Lots of backtracking and the combat was boring. Good controls (wii) but shooting was repetitive. Some neat story in there, but not worth the time.

Fun concept. Paid game, but lots of ads and micro-transactions. Sometimes confusing objectives, gets pretty repetitive.

I don't actually own this, there's a free weekend. It's a neat game, but I didn't get very far into it. I have similar reactions to other sim games. Seems like you buy a building, wait for the bars to go up or down, then react and do it some more. I like the idea of the traffic sim, but didn't really get there. The lack of tutorial didn't help a ton, certainly. It would be nice to start in a traffic land, but I didn't dig in far enough to tell.

I like the idea and the amount of storytelling they could squeeze into an atmospheric game. That said, the controls feel clunky and the enviroments are very bland. I appreciate what they were going for, but this one isn't for me.

Neat concept, a few cool levels, but frustrating stealth segments and requirement to play survival to access the story ruined the experience.

good art and music, mediocre gameplay. brawler, but without some of the polish of similar games.

Character writing seems good, gameplay is fine, not excited about the amount of reading and micro management it seems like it'll take

Very charming, had a lot going for it. Ultimately felt like a lot of cool ideas stacked together that led to a dissatisfying package. Difficulty was sporadic, spells were numerous but mostly useless, as combat rose in complexity it got frustrating, and micromanaging of familiars got out of hand quickly.

Cute monsters and writing, but a lot of systems designed around multiplayer and spotpass, which really don't exist here. Generic party members and simplistic battles don't age well.

Doesn't feel finished. Big focus on cosmetic purchases, not much on gameplay or graphics.

This is historically a genre a like a lot, but I couldn't get into this too much. Beating up dudes is cool, but the core gameplay of managing inventory on the hunt for a progressively larger sword gets old in the absence of a great story (not just "things are grim"). That said, the writing was good and the classes seem well thought out.

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Feels cool for a hot second, but it's about 3 commands on a frustrating UI.

Got right to the end, but the need to grind to progress turned me off. Pretty fun, impressive for one person's work.

Silly, but there's not much there after the initial deslight.

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Neat game, great art, gameplay got in the way of enjoying it, particularly the combat.

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Cool idea, amazing graphics, but the gameplay doesn't quite come through. Very complicated systems, unclear repercussions for actions.

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This is Brick, but with a twist, I guess.

For a game about robots, there sure weren't a lot of robots.

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For a game about being tounge in cheek about dumb parts of games, there's a lot of time spent doing pointless stuff.

Great idea, good art direction, but got weirdly hard and turned a weird direction part way through.

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Did a good job of expanding on the original, but still almost unplayably hard??

A DDR-style game with very light RPG elements. Fun enough, but there's not much to the story or anything that isn't the music gameplay itself.

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Good looking, cool idea, punishingly, unfairly hard.

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