So my Game Pass games have been more than a little disappointing.
Gato Roboto: I like pixel art. This game is ugly as sin, no art to speak of, just a bunch of white crap on black background... and with no shades of grey, everything's blurring together, I spent my time getting hit by ennemies that I can't discern from the rest of the props. The only tell being that they move, slightly. And even then, what are they? One's a frog. The rest? No idea, it's awful pixel art, Metroid 2 on Game Boy had better, clearer, sprites.
Feels like a flash game from before Cave Story, just... really poor.
Undermine: cool gameplay, it's pretty much Isaac with a slight melee focus and nice, colorful pixel art in this one.
Buuut it's not a rogue-lite, it's a grinder, where you spend your runs dying to get gold/gems to not only get new items in future runs (which would be fine), but to just get straight upgrades to your next runs. I fucking hate this shitty trope.
No, I don't want the game to be a cakewalk, I want a chance to defeat it fair and square each time.
Here it means that the game REQUIRES you to constantly get upgrades, exactly like Rogue Legacy, you CAN defeat it from the beginning... if you accept several hundreds hits to kill later bosses as something normal. I don't.
And of course, when you have stats, you don't fear anything in early stages, but still need them to get Isaac loot, so... it's both easy, slow and annoying at both sides of the spectrum.
Garbage design.
Spiritfarer: gorgeous, amazing animations, super cute.
Quickly forgets its metroidvania elements in favor of Harvest Moon grind, you spend your time farming, feeding your cute guys, travel at sea and fish, fish, FISH, FIIIIISH, barely seeing any dialogue... that strays very fast far way from the cute and touching grim reaper that you are to just... gossip between girls because that's what they do (and it's the longest dialogue in the entire game to this point!). And that guy is a union leader, see, fun, anticapitalism, feminism yay. Or not, because it feels like it's written by a 15 years old with a bingo to fill up.
Also amazing visuals! All islands look the same. If you wanted to reuse the same background, maybe make a single large one, not five tiny ones with nothing on them. It's just a rehash, both visually and in gameplay, which is just a complete bore.
Sea travel has never, ever been done well in any videogame ever (Wind Waker can get fucked), and should never be. it's fucking boring and ugly. When you have 95% of it, and the rest is barely registering as anything else than menial fetch quests, I stop playing.
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