The Devil In Me, the finale in the Dark Pictures Anthology by Supermassive Games (published by Bandai Namco) makes it the fourth game in the installment. Its predecessors Man of Medan, Little Hope, and House of Ashes were great decision based making games that gained popularity and certainly geared attraction towards this newest release. This game is based off of the true crime events of H.H. Holmes - Americas' first (recognized) serial killer. The story follows a group of filmmakers needing a break for their documentary series about American serial killers. This group of individuals are easily lured to a remote island, desperate to save their dying program. And in the midst of the recreated H.H. Holmes hotel, they end up becoming the very own victims that they cover in their show. With knowledge, trust, and bravery, they must find a way to escape the fanatically inspired killer. CHARACTERS Kate Wilder: Kate is the host of the show "Architects of Murder." We later through choices find ou t that she is the ex lover of Mark Nestor. At first Kate is seen as stuck up and conceited, but through choices she is revealed to be compassionate and caring for those close to her. She is also one of the most daring of the leads. Mark Nestor: Mark is the cameraman, photographer, videographer. He appears to be a close confidant to Charlie and is the ex lover of Kate Wilder. He is a nervous bunch with a large fear of heights, but makes up for it with compassion and care. He is an indecisive person, but it is up to the player to either have him stay in his old ways or be a person who takes initiative. Charlie Lonnet: The man leading the bunch always with a pack of smokes in hand. Charlie is the leader of this film crew and it truly is up to the player whether or not he is made for said task. Just like Kate, he is a wild card that is easily likeable or you can gain much disdain for quite quickly. As stated, this depends on your playstyle. Jamie Tiergan: Likely the most bold and understandable of the bunch is Jamie. The light tech of the group is an overall enjoyable and least problematic character for the viewer. Though one must state that her relationship with Kate, which we find out later is affected by a misunderstanding, is rocky at best. It is definitely important on deciding whether you want her relationships with the other characters to be on good or worse terms. I would state that her character is one of the best and most relatable. Especially with her reactions to the sequence of events surrounding her. Erin Keenan: The shy, quirky, and breathless audio tech. With a bad case of asthma, Erin starts out strong appearing weak and frail throughout the opening sequences. While she can remain this way, she can also later appear to become less timid and more brave as the story continues. Though even with a bit of development from her, she is still unfortunately the weakest link. Regardless of this, I personally found it hard to dislike her after her (in)famous "don't be scared song." A sense of needing to protect appeared after hearing such. OVERALL STORY & GAMEPLAY MECHANICS The overall story for The Devil In Me was very immersive. To fully flesh out and become the most knowledgeable on its lore, it will require a bit of reading. With papers and secrets to be found all over the hotel estate, there is much depth put in. Especially with the flashbacks provided, it becomes fun to go down the rabbit hole of who the killer may or may not be. It seems pretty obvious as you go through said flashbacks, but one wonders whether it is too obvious. As Mark states later in the game, could there not be more than one killer? One will also think to themselves, what is the direct correlation with the curator? We see at the end a book that the curator is working on with the names of suspects we learn of during our gameplay, but why does he seem....aggravated? Is he not just an overseer? As for the new and old mechanics of the game, they were not awful. The QTE's were enjoyable, but the difficulties felt like there was no real difference. As for the moving objects, breaker boxes, and personal items....I could do without. At times it was cool to have and I enjoyed having them there. For example, Erin and her inhaler only having a specific amount of uses. Though with the UI it was so hard to notice at times that I realized many people lost a character due to it. Many others, along with myself, were stuck finding a code for so long because it was not noticeable that Kate had a pencil! Another way in which it felt unneccessary was with Jamie and her breaker mehcanics. It was a decent idea to implement, but was not utilized fully. It was only done two or three times, but never was it under duress or used in a way that would actually affect the character(s). The only thing it would do was elongate the amount of time playing until figured out. The hiding mechanic was fun and that I believe was used quite well. In fact, I believe that could have been used more rather than having "run or hide" options. One thought that came across my mind was that these new mechanics could have waited until season two. People would have played this game regardless of these new mechanics. Many did not even know until the beta came out that they existed. Perhaps, having rather introduced this in season two would have given more time to perfect them and implement them better. Though hopefully with them being in this game, it can be counted as "experimental" and the developers will do more with them in the future. SINGLE PLAYER & MULTIPLAYER Single Player: For the most part single player worked pretty well. There was the occasional head twist or pop up, but as of writing this review, it is the recommended playstyle. If you are not going to play single player mode, the best I could say would be couch mode co-op. This way you are less likely to face the same issues as those in regular online co-op. Some of those issues mentioned below. Though be careful with the heartbeat sequences as it is predestined for some individuals to fail it seems even after completing the prompt correctly. Multiplayer: I absolutely could not recommend this. At bare minimum this mode will likely require multiple restarts and will be the actual hardest most available. I would say your highest chance of getting a character killed would be playing online co-op. It is, I may even say, unplayable at this stage. Now, one can indeed finish the game with this playstyle, but it will almost guarantee a not-so-fun experience. Regardless of the bugs such as a occasional disappearing torso, or a character you thought dead appearing for a jump scare, it is just too much. Characters needlessly die, many cut scenes do not directly match, and the extra scenes with multiplayer that singles do not receive seem to be the worst part. For a game that is geared towards multiplayer, perhaps it should have followed The Quarry in releasing said option later. Or it could have simply pushed the release date back and worked on perfecting the game more. FINAL THOUGHTS! The only way I would recommend this game is if it went on sale, or if you purchase it to play single player/couch co-op. If you are looking to play this game with a buddy online, keep in mind that it may be better to wait for a patch update. That way your immersion is not totally lost and you can have a better experience. Overall, I did have fun. It was enjoyable and I definitely felt more of a need to keep my characters alive. The story was engaging as well with it not being directly supernatural (still questionable!) and realizing that unlike, say Little Hope, death is truly the end for this group. There is no hallucinating this time around. As for a season finale, I thought the premise was great and it was worthy. Especially when we leaned more into the curator. Unfortunately, it was not the best it could have been. And as stated, this was at no fault of the story or the characters. It is due to the mechanics and gameplay bugs/errors. If it was released in a more polished state, it would be that much more great. With so many other games this year, I was hoping that The Dark Pictures would not make the same mistake. Thankfully, we were granted a small preview into the season two premiere. Directive 8020. Let us hope that it will make up for where The Devil In Me lacked and make better use of the new mechanics!

Game of the Year? Or just the top souls game ever? This review has been made with over 80 hours of gameplay which I find is an adequate amount of time to make ones own consensus. In short, the game is beautiful and challenging yet rewarding. There are very few things that disappoint, but even those have fixes. For a more in depth review let us go into classes. CLASSES There are 10 classes to choose from. All with noticeably stronger stats, but may have a low level, to a more balanced toon to begin. New? If you are new to a souls game or even want an 'easy' mode as many call it, Astrologer may be for you. Magic is OP. That is if you put in the effort to increase you Intelligence stats (also faith and arcane). Whilst going this route may be easier it sort of balances it out by making one what I would call squishy in the beginning. The magic definitely hurts, but there is a lot of work to go into that. Regular souls player? Basically anything. If you want to have some fun and dress in style, samurai for sure. It is a great class not hard to balance out. I would have to say that prisoner is very good also. Prophet I found as well, without spoiling, has quite a few interesting builds as well if you take your time and defeat particular bosses that might be harder to find with one sweep of an area. Expert or Die-hard Fan? Just play wretch already! Just for reference, here are the all the classes and either their starting A or B toon. GAMEPLAY (Fighting, Skills, Magic, Defense) Overall? This will be difficult for an average gamer for sure. If you do not have any experience in any form of a souls type of game it will 100% be a challenge. Do not be discouraged. If something makes you want to quit, leave, level up or explore, and come back. You will notice after the first boss what makes a souls game great: the satisfaction of defeating an enemy and seeing "ENEMY FELLED" on your screen after raging for eternity. Fighting/Skills/Defense? This is all pretty balanced or either OP depending on what you use. If you are daring you can get some pretty unique items in the beginning to help you out even more. The fighting is smooth and defense is hard to time as usual. Catching patterns will at times take a few tries, but one can get used to it after a bit. Just make sure to not dodge for a delayed swing. Those always get me! Magic? Oh, baby. Let me tell you. I did do this route to have a more relaxed style. You can go VERY op with leveling up intelligence and relying solely on magic and summons. Though just like myself, I want to have fun with some spells yet not be so reliant on magic. Just to make the fights more satisfying. There is regular magic like pebbles and arcs to toxic breath you can have made with dragons heart, etc. Though if you want a balanced mix, use weapon enhancing magic. It is really fun to use. Staff in the left hand with a shield, and two swords in the right. One with bleed and another. I use this with my other skill being the flash step. Mega useful. GRAPHICS Beautiful.....next. CONS Multiplayer. This game is great in so many ways. The only thing I would say is that I would love to have multiplayer to either be a bit easier to do (though it isn't that bad after the first few times). It is just a bit tedious. And it can get pricey if you do it quite often. PC Port. As a general statement, it has been an ongoing issue so far with stuttering and lag in the game for PC users. At least more than the average, oh my PC can't handle the game. I myself even experienced this after a few days of not noticing it. Cloud Save Data. Once again, on PC there is an issue for saves. Every now and again some people will announce that the game crashed or did not save properly as steam will state that "if you start the game progress may be lost as it has not been saved properly." They state that with a new steam update that this has been fixed, but time will of course tell. There are some good fixes online even if it does occur so do not sweat. But it is tiresome. DO I RECCOMEND THIS GAME? Yes I do. It is good for the price. The replay factor is off the charts and there are so many builds to run and things that one may have missed before. It is just a good experience to have overall...so long as you do not wreck your system out of rage. Have fun out there tarnished! Want to watch gameplay? Click the Youtube or Twitch links on the page!!

A Romance Visual Novel for Nintendo Switch PREMISE: The whole story is based around Cupid. As the title suggests. You play as the pink haired Cupid, known as Lynette Mirror in the game. Tired of not feeling successful as a god, and being harassed about not doing well by her father, she flees to the real world. Otherwise known as Earth. She believes that humans no longer need Gods. That with their advances in knowledge and technology, they are no longer a necessity for their survival. Leaving her home behind to prove her stern father wrong, she goes to college to learn about love. Later on, becoming a bridal advisor at Cupid Corporation. Attempting to become the number one advisor, she is forced to help the Parasite 5. A collection of your five pursuers, each with their own unique and interesting stories, leading you to figure out why they gained this notorious nickname. GAMEPLAY: The gameplay is very easy. It is a decision based game so of course you are going to be making decisions along the way that will affect how your story pans out. There are several endings to each of the parasite 5. One could easily use a guide, but if you were to figure out all the endings using save data it is just as easy. Note: The person you pursue depends on your outcome with the "Type of Love" test you receive in the prologue. VISUALS: This game is very visually appealing. It is very clean and looks great. Being a newer visual novel (2021), my expectations on graphics and art were high. I was not disappointed at all. The characters all have their unique look and definitely play into their parts. Almost too well. CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT: The character development is REAL! Ms. Main Character is professional to a 'T' for the longest time. Not in a way that will annoy the player. At least, not to me. It is dependent on your patience. Though since the game is fairly long, her resistance may seem long at first, but that is truly on through the prologue until you choose your main path and go on a date with said path. As for the Parasite 5, I liked all the stories. I found my favorites to be Ryuki, Allan, and the *secret ending* parasite. YES! There is a secret ending once you finish all the first five. Shelby, Raul, and Gill were great stories as well, but some better than others of course. My recommendation of order would be: Shelby, Ryuki, Raul, Gill, Allan, and finally the secret path (my favorite other than Ryuki and Allan). To Play or Not To Play? PLAY!!!!