Straimium Immortally Short Review

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by Amr (@siegarettes)

  • Straimium Immortally
  • Developer: Anthony Case
  • Publisher: Caiysware
  • Switch, PC

Everything in Straimium is a little off. What initially presented as a regular rogue-lite shooter became something more curious as I realized how obscured its details were. Each screen is a miniature ecosystem, with flickers of life within its biomechanical interiors. Enemies, constructed with sparse pixel counts, swarm you as you enter new areas, while bosses and NPCs dominate the space with elaborate detail. Powerups appear only as symbols, leaving me to figure out their effects only through experimentation. All of this is obscured with a haze of color and visual effects, blending foreground and background, and having me wonder which parts of its ecosystem are hostile to you. 

But as I began to parse its visuals and understand its small eccentricities, I came to another realization: under all its obtuseness Straimium Immortaly is a deeply average game. 

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Old School Musical Review

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by Amr (@siegarettes)

  • Old School Musical 
  • Developer-La Moutarde
  • Publisher-Dear Villagers
  • Switch, PC

Old School Musical had me thinking a lot about what makes a rhythm game enjoyable to me. On the surface it seems like an easy slam dunk–take the aesthetics of old videogames, mash them together into a narrative and turn it into a musical you play along to. But the end result ends up a little incoherent. It draws on many sources for its homages, and does a reasonable job of replicating them, but it never finds a coherent direction, mixing aesthetics haphazardly, and scoring the scenes with tracker style music that brings to mind the European PC scene more than the console and arcade games it pays homage to. 

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DJMAX RESPECT V Impressions

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By: RJ (@rga_02)

  • DJMAX RESPECT V
  • Publisher: Neowiz
  • Developer: Neowiz
  • PC

2019 was a good year for rhythm games. Sound Voltex saw its fifth iteration released, Groove Coaster made its way to the Nintendo Switch and lastly, DJMAX made a return to the PC. 

I could make a pun about how Neowiz deserves some respect for porting over DJMAX Respect over to the PC, but that would just be lame. The word respect can’t be thrown around in a meaningless fashion. To achieve that title, you need to earn it as they would say.

But enough from taking quotes from a fortune cookie, how does DJMAX Respect V fare?

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DJ MAX Respect V Impressions

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by Amr (@siegarettes)


  • DJMAX Respect V
  • Developer: Neowiz
  • Publisher: Neowiz
  • PC, previously on PS4

Returning to the series PC roots, DJMAX Respect brings over the latest entry in the stylish rhythm game series, with some new features and major omissions. When the original PS4 version of Respect dropped three years ago, both RJ and I adored it, and I personally found it to be the best introduction into the bullet hell-esque sensory overload of the series. Respect V is generally that same game, but the changes here leave it feeling barebones compared to its console counterpart. 

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Gunlord X Review

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by Amr (@siegarettes)

  • Gunlord X
  • Developer: NG Dev Team
  • Publisher: Eastasiasoft
  • PS4, Switch

NG Dev seem set on single handedly changing my mind about the Euroshooter. Born of the European PC scene, the genre is notorious for tossing away all the arcade conventions that STG fanatics appreciate, instead rooting itself in the demoscene mentality and using the shooter as a medium to flex their technical prowess and deliver overwhelming sights and sounds. 

Gunlord X inherits every one of these problems. Touchy, ambiguous, and honestly a bit sloppy at points, Gunlord X carries all the hallmarks of the European PC shooter, despite its origins as a posthumous Dreamcast and Neo Geo game. In spite of that, it remains enjoyable throughout, making a case for a more relaxed take on the genre.

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Raging Loop is a slow burning game of Werewolf

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by Amr (@siegarettes)

  • Raging Loop
  • Developer: Kemco
  • Publisher: PQube
  • Switch, PC, PS4

It must have been hour two before I met my demise the first time. An unavoidable bad ending where my character, Haruaki, was mauled with no choices you could make to escape it. Turns out death is the only way to make progress. By dying and returning to the beginning, Haruaki gains new knowledge he can use to avoid his fate next time. Several more hours in and I’ve only unlocked a few other choices, and the true game has only just begun. The game’s first “good” ending is a melancholy one, and has Haruaki searching for a new path that will give him more agency in influence the story’s events. 

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Sydney Hunter and the Curse of the Mayan Review

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by Amr (@siegarettes)

  • Sydney Hunter and the Curse of the Mayan 
  • Developer: Collectorvision Games
  • Publisher: Collectorvision Games
  • Switch, PC

Sydney Hunter wastes no time diving into every adventurer trope, then immediately lampshading them. The titular Indiana Jones imitator drops right into an ancient temple, meets the native people, and sets out to prevent an ancient curse from stopping the progress of time itself. Sydney doesn’t understand the local language, so the first stop is to pick up an ancient artifact to let you understand them. Sort of. Turns out they understand you, and the whole ancient artifact thing is just a bit of fun they were having with you. They even point out that “Mayan” is incorrect, as the people themselves are called the Maya. 

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