Recent reviews by Kynji

Looking for a game to play with your child? This is it. There are maps they can do well on. There are maps that will reduce them to tears. There are maps that reduce me to tears. Despite having better hand-eye-coordination and am able to play difficult and fast paced games, I am wholly unable to lob a round ball into a hole 50 yards away in a straight line, and that delights my kiddo.

I can't say that I would recommend this with friends, because it probably has the capacity to ruin friendships if you turn collision on. And if your child is under the age of 10, you WILL play with collision on, but you won't be able to maliciously use it (they can, you can't).

The base game is minimal but the workshop is where it's at. Nice work, workshoppers, you've inflicted us with over 50 hours of evil child laughter and fun.

This is such a relaxing game, to the point I genuinely get sleepy playing it. And that's not a criticism- the game is slow, sweet, and simple, intentionally. This is a cozy comfort game. This is a rainy day game. This is a game you use to take your mind off something. And this is a game where you can pet cats.

Oh, you wanted to know about mechanics? Pfft. Fine. This is a game you can play one-handed (not working blue here). You click to build little buildings, to clean up your cute little street, and to pet some kitties. The missions are small challenges that require you to pay attention to what your villagers like (and it's simple, because groups of people like the same things, there's no deep strategy here). Somehow, the graphics are both cute and appealing enough to make you crave ramen. Perhaps later missions will be devastatingly complicated, but they'll take me a decade to find, because I lose myself for this game in short sessions (a mission or two), and then get back to staring into the void and persisting through the horrors.

This free-to-play game is surprisingly worth sinking 30+ hours into. It’s technically impressive—no matter how many characters or mobs are on screen, there’s no slowdown, crashing, or lag, even at launch.

The game leans heavily toward solo play, with most quests taking you into individual instances. While the overall difficulty tends to be on the easier side, there are still some decent challenges (like secret dungeon bosses) if you're looking for something tougher. There’s a lot to explore and master, from upgrades and quest chains to figuring out lithographs and other mechanics, which can keep you occupied just getting the hang of things.

The gear system feels a bit simplified—there aren’t as many options for customizing armor and weapons as I'd like. That said, it makes it easy to dive right in without worrying about min-maxing, which is a nice change of pace. Plus, while there are plenty of microtransactions available, none of the essentials are locked behind a paywall. Inventory space, stat resets, and other basics are all free or tied to in-game currency, not real cash.

You’ll likely hit max level around the 25-hour mark, but there’s still more to do, especially if you enjoy PvP. I’ll probably stick around for a bit, casually exploring until another game I’m waiting on releases, but for what it is, this is a solid 30-hour diversion.

Edited to add: good luck getting a character name though---they're global, and rumored to not release even when a character is deleted. I went through 30+ iterations first (I suppose I'm just not that creative, but I really tried hard not to add numbers to my username).

A masterpiece of a game and one that truly deserves the awards. It is frustrating, funny, hilarious, heartbreaking, and very enjoyable.

Your choices absolutely do matter in this game and have quite an effect on the other characters, your party, etc. All I can say is: save often. Save in the middle of fights. Even if you don't plan to save scum...save a lot.

I didn't play the original Remnant so I didn't have any expectations going in. This game is an enjoyable shooter and you get exactly what you expect from the game. Lots of things try to eat you, you shoot them. Bosses have a little RNG so once in awhile the game gets impossible, but the challenge is generally pretty good.

I would be bored out of my mind playing solo--in my opinion this is a game you co-op with a friend/partner.

A mainstay of the gameplay is replaying areas for new loot and that is my least favorite style of gameplay. Please be aware of that before buying as it's really a core intention of the game.

Full disclosure, we got to endgame and the boss was just so so so much harder we didn't beat it. We keep meaning to go back and try another day but the desire to keep playing just waned away. In other games finishing the final boss really feels like a notch in your belt, and in this game it kinda felt like meh, why punish ourselves? Do we really care? Nope, we did not. We love a challenge but something about this final boss just felt punishing versus an achievement.

You don't own this? Why not? You don't enjoy fun wallpapers? You don't get happy over animated fish swimming across your monitors? You enjoy catching your breath every time you press 'download' on a random wallpaper from a sketchy google site?

That's cool. Awesome wallpapers aren't for everyone. But if they are for you, know that the selection is great, you can turn on/off/up/down the animated elements and sound, it's easy to change one or both or all monitors in your setup, and you'll never get tired of picking seasonally appropriate images. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go apply some "it's almost Halloween, fall, sort of Gothic" styles to my monitors.

It feels a bit silly to review a game that has thousands of reviews and hundreds of articles from game journalists, but here we are. What can I even say that hasn't been said before? Perhaps nothing, but I like words anyway, so here we go.

Let's talk about what type of game player will like this game. If you're already a fan of Dark Souls/Bloodborne, you'll love this entry. It's just as challenging, infuriating, complex, mystifying, gratifying, and rage-inducing as ever.

If you love open world RPG games, you might like this one. It's atmospheric, graphically stunning, and best-in-class. However, like all Souls entries, there is often no clear answer to "Where do I go next?" or "How do I find ..." or even "What the @*$^?" If you need a clear UI and clarity on quests, subquests, and weapons...all I can say is 'lol.'

If you get motion sickness, fear not: you can play this game.
If you have a fear of heights, you'll be fine. Mostly.
If you have a fear of spiders, you're fine. Fear of skittering severed hands, though...

This entry into the Souls games is more accessible than prior games. There is more freedom to play with your chosen play style, and there's a player-made co-op mod that is absolutely FANTASTIC.

There are now numerous walkthroughs online so anyone who wants to use Elden Ring as an entree into the Soulsverse can certainly do so, and it's by far more new-player friendly than any others (looking at you Dark Souls 2).

It has Patches.

An excellent game that absolutely did not disappoint. I have no particular criticisms over the game because anything I might complain about wasn't a game oversight, it was a carefully considered decision by the developers. And that is why people love the Souls games so.

What a fantastic game. The writing is excellent, the voice acting superb. The quests are wonderfully ridiculous and the people are so well developed. The world-building is detailed and flips you between delight and despair. Mild game spoilers below.

If you're on the fence about this game, let's talk pros and cons.The game is enjoyably campy. The writing is thorough (to the point I bet we all skimmed a fair amount of sections) and you can certainly miss some fun plot lines by not exploring everything. Running around is slow, and the entire game is methodical. But it's such an enjoyable experience, that if Disco Elysium 2 rolls around and I can play a washed up SUPERSTAR cop again you bet your ass I'm in. I'm all in.

You're playing a character. Your choices in the game and where you spend your skill points do change this character, but by and large you're playing the character. The game is ABOUT this character. It's not a blank space to be whomever you want to be, you are assuredly him. But you can develop him in unique ways. The game does have a central plot, but you'd do well to note that the game is more about the character than the plot. You may solve the plot. You may not. But the game is not really about that, not entirely.

The character, plot, and world building feel like they're building up to a crescendo. When the end of the game finally rolled around I felt, honestly, a bit let down. Because saying goodbye to this character is the let-down. This isn't a complaint about the ending because I can't say that I would have wanted my game to end any other way (there are multiple endings), but rather that you dive so deeply into this one person, into one character, and at the end, the game wrenches you back out to remind you how small you are compared to some of the larger machinations. And that's an unpleasant reminder.

Atmospheric, fun puzzle game that is ultimately tedious. A few hours of plant sorting and labeling and unlocking story are enjoyable, but I'm struggling to sink more time into the game. It just feels so very same in everything you do. I wanted more interaction with the plants because they're amazing and drawn in such perfection. Overall this is a game where the art takes the prize and the game behind it is somewhat disappointing. If I ever bring myself to finish, I'll update this review.

I love Klei games for their visual impact and perfect blend of unrelenting difficulty paired with endearingly silly content.

This survival game is one of the hardest I've ever played, and is NOT made easier with friends. I struggle to stay alive for any remarkable length of time. Yet somehow the exploration, the sounds, the sheer terror of running into some weird new creature that looks sweet and toothy and you can't tell if it's going to bite your face off or give you a flower--that keeps me coming back for more, again and again. Play this series and you too can enjoy the depths of masochism like me.