I saw DC Universe Online was free on my Switch so I thought I'd give it a try and man was it a bummer. I've played my fair share of mmorpgs before in the past so I thought I knew what I was in for but this was just bad. I started in Gotham and the world just seemed way too small and the villains were super numerous and oddly too easy to defeat and not enough story.

I actually bought this back when it first released on PS3, and it was not fun at all. I remember running around looking for things to do, but everything was like "obtain ten powet gems to do this" with no indication of how to obtain said gems.

Not a bad game, but I was left pretty disappointed.

It’s incredibly short compared to other Obsidian/Bethesda titles and there is no giant, sprawling open world map.

Just a handful of different, yet samey planets that can each be completed within 5 hours or so.

I have spent way too much time lately with Hades, the latest roguelite from Supergiant Games.

The story deals with Zagreus, son of Hades, who tries to escape his oppressive father's realm. To do so he's assisted by both friends and allies within the Underworld and by the Olympic Gods who believe that Zagreus wants to unite with his family members living on Olympos. Most escape attempts end in death, but as a god of dead and rebirth, Zagreus simply appears in the depths of Hades again to retry.

During each attempt Zagreus can chose from one of six weapons (on your first attempts only the sword is available, but after a while spear, shield, bow, gauntlets and even a gun are available). Each weapon has its own moveset (and a bit later you'll get 4 different versions of each weapon) allowing for different tactics when escaping. Each weapon has an attack and a special attack (and some even have an extra attack by holding the attack button and charging an attack). For instance the spear has a stab attack as its regular attack, the special attack throws the spear and the charge attack lets Zagreus sweep the spear in a circular movement around him. Zagreus also has a dash that allows him to avoid attacks and a cast which is a magic attack that he can throw at enemies.

When escaping Zagreus will receive assistance from several Olympic Gods that will enhance his attacks and abilities in unique ways for each god. Most gods have their own thematic abilities that will enhance your attack or special attack or cast or dash. You can also receive the ability to call upon a god in battle for a short assistance. Exceptions are the gods Chaos and Hermes who each have their own unique mechanism. You can receive assistance from multiple gods during each escape attempt, but only 1 boon per category (attack, special attack, dash, cast or call) can be taken. Taken another one replaces the original boon. The point of the game is to find combinations that work well for your own playstyle.

On dead you will lose all your boons and gold you have collected during your run, but you keep all the other items you have received which can help unlock permanent upgrades for your character.

As with all Supergiant games, the presentation is excellent: art, voice-acting and music are key to the game and while I find the combat entertaining on its own merits, slowly getting to learn both your friends and family and the Olympic Gods was the real draw for me. After many hours and many runs (quite a few succesful ones even), I think I'm nearing the end of my interest in the game (having maxed out my relationship with all characters bar one, having all achievements in Steam and only the challenge to defeat bonus-boss Charon two times in a row (which I did, but the reward did not unlock) or the final statue of ally/voluntary punching bag Skelly to unlock), but it's been well worth my time and money.

I bought Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night on Xbox1, where it is presently on sale for $15.99. It was a game developed by former Castlevania producer Koji Igarashi after he left Konami in 2014 and funded through Kickstarter. The game managed to raise 5.5M for the game's development.

It's a spiritual successor to Castlevania, in the similar fashion as metroidvania games go. The battle style of this game is much like Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow, but instead of souls of the enemies you absorb shards. Which are explained in the opening of the game. And then like SOTN and other Castlevania games following it, there are weapons to find throughout the game (so far as I've gotten all in chests....not sure if any enemies drop them) that vary; swords, daggers, whips, fist/feet weapons, etc.

And as Metroidvania games are famous for; giant boss fights. I've only fought one boss, and my only complaint would be that it was basically just hack and slash till it's dead. Now I don't mind that so much in that the battles aren't more like Metroid's boss battles, but that it seemed that a giant boss that seemed to have weak points through the style of animation and how the monster was put together that I initially spent time trying to hit what looked like key points until I realized there were none and to just hack away at it. Maybe as the game progresses the boss fights will get more intricate.

Now I'll preface this with saying; it's been a really long time since I've played a side scroller at all. Probably easily 5 years or more. So I may be rusty now, and have to get into my grove with it, but the difficulty seem a little high for "normal" (harder modes have to be unlocked). But again it could all be on me.

The characters are fun so far. To start the game you're playing a typical anime style gal. Not much innovation there, but she's a interesting character and has good voice acting. Her support to start is a male friend of hers, that both know the antagonist. Who not surprisly looks like you're typical anime guy .... or is he a he? Well he suppose to be anyway lol

All and all for the few hours I got to play it, every bit worth it for $16. For those that don't/can't catch the sale on Xbox1 I wouldn't say it's worth for $40, at least not to me, unless you really enjoy metroidvania games and money isn't an issue. But I know I would have to play more and really get impressed by the complexity and replay value of this game if I spent $40 on it.

There are two other Bloodstained games Cure of the Moon and Curse of the Moon 2. They are made more in the vein of NES Castlevania, while Ritual of the Night is more like a amalgam of PS1/Gamecube era graphics with a touch of new tech to help polish out the environment and backgrounds. It is heavily influenced by SOTN in many ways, which I love. I may not ever get to play Alucard or SOTN2 again, but this is pretty damn close.

I started the series with Trails in the Sky (actually like those entries better, but they are oldschool sprite-based RPGs). Was not a big fan of CS3 in the end (but YYMV), but I do enjoy the series a lot so good to see somebody else liking them.