Fretless is an odd game, I think it is a game with a very very specific audience, which I feel I fall under, but it doesn't quite hit the ball out of the park.

Fretless is a turn based card game funded by music YouTuber Rob Scallon, which features him, many of his collaborators as well as several running jokes from his channel, I feel like this could significantly limit the people that would enjoy the game, and befuddle players who wandered into the game without knowing about the framing device. Unfortunately I cannot judge that, as I do know and I cannot approach it from the perspective of a newcomer.

The gameplay is clearly heavily heavily inspired by Slay the Spire and similar roguelikes, you have a deck of cards which serve as your attacks, this deck can be modified with new cards to replace old ones, or upgrading old cards to increase their effects. Different instruments act as your different weapons, each with their own decks and gimmicks to play towards. In addition to that, each instrument has three slot where specific mods can be added to further customize your playing style.

Combat plays out fairly simply, on your turn you can see the actions each of your enemies will take and you can play up to cards to counter them, build shields or apply a variety of status effects. In addition to this, when you fill up your Performance Meter which you can use to unleash a powerful attack that varies per instrument.

Unfortunately as you move through the game combat rarely changes, of course new enemies and mechanics are introduced at a decent clip, but you never really feel consistently powerful, as your only progression comes from the cards you upgrade or the mods you apply, you will never level up, while you may be able to go through earlier areas easier, you will never steam roll them, and this feeling really starts to add up near the end of the game, I found myself more commonly avoiding fights because I felt like I wasn't gaining much from them, if I'm avoiding your main gameplay loop, theres a problem there.

The story of Fretless is fairly simple, you're a small town musician who wants to enter in the big battle of the bands competition hosted by a popular label, turns out they're anti-ai corporate slop hi-jinx ensure. The narrative is not very strong nor very interesting, its largely a framing device to move you from area to area, nothing more nothing less.

Fretless uses a pixel art style, its rather charming, if fairly standard, but it does shine when it comes to the bosses, especially in the later game when they move on from being regular guys to full on monstrosities, with the bigger canvas the greater they can shine.

But the music, the music is this games high point, as one would expect from a game where music is woven into the visuals, the gameplay and the story as well as financed by a musician. It does a thing that is quite hard to do with games and puts the soundtrack in the forefront without drawing attention to it by using lyrics or anything of that nature.

Over all I think I really like the idea of Fretless, it does have some rough patches when it comes to combat and progression and the occasional frustrating bug, but despite all that it is a fun experience, I hope the devs can take this frame work and move forward with it and build more of a basis for them to stand on their own with out having to pull references from other medias and games

We Love Katamari is a very typical type of sequel, where not much changes, its just more game, which I think in this case is not bad.

As said, the gameplay largely remains unchanged from the previous entry, I am unsure if the handling of the Katamari has changed, to me it certainly does feel like the control has improved to some degree, but that could also be myself improving. There are a few new special type stages, they're not particularly engaging in a way that drives my fun factor, it's lot harder to play in the way I enjoy when I have a specific end goal. But I do think these stages are important for breaking up the monotony of gameplay.

The story isn't that much, nor is it the main focus of the game, having a little bit of backstory for The King of All Cosmos is a nice little thing to behold, but if it were absent I wouldn't mourn its loss.

Katamari has always had really endearing graphics, this game is no different, the graphics are simple and charming!

Among other things Katamari is also known for its music, I'd say that this entry is slightly weaker in that place, while I still remember several iconic tracks from the original game, here nothing has really stuck in my head past a vague memory.