I’m Kinglink and it’s past the first week of May, so it’s time for a Humble Choice May 2024 Review. 

This month we have two headliners, and the first game is from my favorite series, so I’m ready to go. I’ve played all the games for an hour on stream, and one of them with the viewers as well. Now I can tell you what the games are like, how they play, and if you might enjoy them. 

There’s a lot to get through but I can’t wait to talk about the game already on the screen. Let’s get started! 

Yakuza Like a Dragon. The JRPG edition

This is the sixth title in the Yakuza series on Humble Monthly or Choice, but I’ll repeat it all, this is one of my favorite series. This game has a deadly serious story, with light-hearted side stories, g. Great characters, an interesting city, and great pacing. Every game is entertaining and they all have a ton of content. 

Like a Dragon though is a bit different. This time instead of Kiryu Kazuma, we follow Ichiban Kasuga. He is almost a drop-in replacement at times, but that works. However he sees the entire world as an RPG and thus instead of a brawler, the combat is now a turn-based RPG. I wasn’t sure if this would work, but it does. 

Still, I feel like this is almost a leftover story from the original game at times. This feels a little longer than the original games, and honestly, I prefer the brawler combat to the RPG, not that I hate this, but if you dislike turn-based RPGs, this probably won’t change your mind, even though everything else is perfect. 

Pick this up if you’re a fan of the series or a fan of JRPGs. I do mean that for JRPG fans, outside of Yakuza 0, this is the best game to start with, and if you love JRPGs, this will be excellent. This is truly one of my favorite series, and this was a breath of fresh air for it. 

Hi-Fi Rush. A rhythm game where every department understood the assignment. 

Hi-Fi Rush is a visual pleasure, even without the sound you should be able to follow along, and that’s because everything in this game works off the beat. The art, the music, the design, the combat. Even the enemy attacks are all timed well. Yet while that means it’s a rhythm game, you don’t need a great sense of rhythm to play through it. Easy and Normal won’t require it, but if people are fans of rhythm games, they can go far deeper, with scoring systems like Devil May Cry, or Bayonetta.

What’s not as good. Hmmm, that’s a hard one. I guess the graphical style might not be to everyone’s taste. The music is pre-selected, so you can’t choose your tracks. The humor, which is well done, might upset people who don’t like to laugh. Honestly, not much, this was an excellent game. 

Pick this up… No qualifiers, people should check this game out. It was my favorite game of last year. This is that fresh new game with a real budget behind it that everyone is looking for but no one can find. It’s right here. 

Steelrising. Dark Souls with Marie Antionette

Steelrising has some interesting thoughts. Marie Antoinette is decrying the French Revolution. Though in this universe King Louie has created automats, basically clockwork robots. Marie has her own loyal version, Aeris, controlled by the player. Steelrising starts with this interesting concept, however, once you choose your archetype and start the game there are French influences, but so far it’s another Dark Souls Game. There are great choices for the Art Design and the combat feels fluid. 

Well mostly, the dodge is more of a side step that never feels as good as a full tumble. Overall this is a game trying to not be like other Souls-Likes so you have stuff like a massive jump but lack the weight and feeling of a Souls-like Combat, it’s being different but different isn’t exactly better in this case. 

Pick this up if you’re a fan of Souls-like and want a B-Tier entry. You can also look at the other games Spiders, the studio behind this, has made. That includes games like Greedfall and Of Orcs and Men. They’re interesting concepts but overall I don’t think they are the top-tier games people will be raving about. Still, it’s a Souls-like. 

Loddlenaut. I wish cleaning the ocean was this fun. 

Loddlenauts is just a chill game. You swim in the ocean, blast away pollutants, clean up microplastics, and find Loddle, essentially a cute fish friend who you can help out. There’s a large world with sunken ships, large reefs, and interesting locations to find, as well as challenges and a ton of stuff to clean up. 

However there’s not a lot of danger or challenge from what I have seen, it’s overall a pretty chill game. Even when I went the wrong way, the game pretty much says “Your goal is not that way, but go explore if you want”. The cleaning will be repetitive to some, but there are a lot of games like this that work in the same way. Think Powerwash simulator for something similar but this is far cuter.

Pick this up if you want to just enjoy swimming in the water or exploring the deep. This will work great with young children, but even adults need a game to unwind with. Not everything can be about shooting baddies, sometimes just picking up a little plastic and turning it into a new device you’ve been needing is what works, and that’s what Loddlenauts has. 

King of the Castle. It’s good to be the King. 

King of the Castle is a good social party game. The main player is the Monarch, and everyone else is randomly assigned to three factions, I believe it evens off the numbers. From there the goal for each faction is to take out the king, and the king to hold off the factions until his heir is secured to take the throne next. 

All of this is done through rounds and each team has several goals they need to accomplish to advance their schemes or push for a rebellion. Almost everything is done through voting, though only one copy of the game is needed. Twitch chat, or a website is used for players who want to play along, and it allows people to join in the middle of the game. 

On the other hand, I was lucky that I was playing this on stream, because this requires four players, and we ended up with 7, the larger the better. Because only one game is needed, this is probably something you can just check out on Twitch to get a better feel of the game. The games are a bit long and involved. Players will probably need two or three games to feel comfortable about what they’re doing. 

I will say though I had fun with it, our story ended up with one of the players, Selvage, being killed, I as the monarch married one of their female family members, and then we killed off the second version of Selvage’s character. I almost feel bad about it, but it was an entertaining storyline, and organic. 

Pick this up if you’re a streamer, or have a large group of people that want to play something. However, this game does take a long time.  I would say you could burn through multiple games of different Jack Box games before one game of this was over, and since this requires a larger number of players, Jack Box might be preferable. 

Bravery And Greed. This is great as long as you don’t know one fact.

Bravery and Greed feels like a Beat ‘Em Up. It allows up to four players to play couch co-op or online and players will fight through five levels exploring randomly generated areas, and beating four bosses, to earn gems that unlock the fifth level promising a Dwarven treasure horde. I was able to run through the game in an hour, and it worked. 

The missing fact however is this is intended to be a rogue-lite, and I’ve always wondered how it feels if someone beats a rogue-lite on the first playthrough.  Now that I have done that I know It’s not a good thing. This game is extremely easy, and maybe I had the luckiest gear ever, but ultimately, I beat the game in an hour. While I unlocked additional items in the game and potentially some modifiers, I beat the game. I don’t see a reason to return. 

Pick this up if you want to play a beat ‘em up rogue-lite with several friends. It was entertaining for the hour but I was also shocked at how easy I found it. There are other classes, so maybe there’s more challenge but I honestly don’t see a reason to return. 

Amanda the Adventurer. A spooky puzzle game.

Amanda the Adventurer has a great spooky vibe. The game is played in an attic filled with tons of stuff, and every time I was done watching a video I quickly looked at a doll expecting that doll to move. The entire game has this dark daemonic feeling towards it, and after viewing a tape, different devices are placed on the center table for the player to use and solve puzzles to get additional tapes. 

However, the puzzles here are a mixed bag. I think I had a solve rate of maybe 50 to 75 percent without assistance . There are at least a few Steam guides, but there’s very little help in the game and even a minor hint system or at least the main player talking to give the player a hint would have been appreciated. Also, I’ve heard from horror fans this is not that scary, and that’s probably why I’m ok with this. 

Pick this up if you want a horror-puzzle hybrid. The entire game is based on a spoof of Dora the Explorer, but it doesn’t even try to pretend it’s normal. This gets pretty wild, though I would recommend trying to make the wrong choices because watching what happens when you make the wrong choice is the most entertaining part. 

Mediterranea Inferno. An attempt at a visual novel. 

Mediterranea Inferno starts with the author saying it’s his reflection on a host of problems and has a long content warning. I don’t know if it’s the author trying to be the voice of a generation, but it comes off that way. The game is about three gay men going on a vacation to reconnect after “the Pandemic” and don’t worry they namecheck COVID. 

I hope the author felt a cathartic release with this, this was intended to be a way to talk about something that bothered him, but comes out as something like I’m 14 and this is deep. The thing is, the pandemic was hard for everyone, and it’s hard to incorporate that into a story, but it’s also not done well here. It’s also hard to tell a story of what seemed like three over-privileged sexed-up gay men who… honestly, I’m not the right person for this game, and that’s a big issue with it being in Humble.

But also in general, I just didn’t like this game, it felt more like it was forcing storylines and even after 20 minutes I knew it wasn’t going to work for me. I know a lot of people are going to call this a great piece of art because it spoke to or for them, but if I have no reason to even know who a character is in the first fifteen minutes, why am I focused on a visual novel about them? 

Pick this up if you liked Milky Way Prince, this is made by the same developers, and I didn’t like that one, so I didn’t like this one. Thus is life. But for me, This is a hard pass.

And with that, before we go on… You know what, rather than showing this fetishism, I’ll show the version I prefer. Ichiban, take it away. 

But that’s the last of the Humble Choice. Once again we end on a downer. But let’s get refocused, and talk about is there any deal… dot com

There is. Hi-Fi Rush has never been at 12 dollars, Steelrising also has yet to reach this price, and yes, Yakuza has been lower, but it’s worth 12. King of the Castle, Amanda, and Mediterranea Inferno have gone for frighteningly less though.  Bravery was in a Fanatic Pick and Mix, so not bundled before.

At the same time, this bundle does have one big problem. If you take away the headliners, this bundle kind of falls apart, take away Steelrising too, and there’s not a ton here. That’s true most of the time, but I feel like a lot of people will already have Like a Dragon, or Hi-Fi Rush or have played those on Game Pass if they wanted to. However, if people want to own them on Steam, this is the best way.

However yeah, the rest of these titles aren’t as exciting, they’re great add-on games, but… well yeah. You know, let’s just wrap this up. Though, first I will quickly show this, this is just a short list of all the coupons. The DLC for Yakuza here is not needed in my opinion. Saturnalia is popular, and the Meta bundle is mostly games that have previously been in Humble Choice, though there is also 30 percent off Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader. 

There’s also 10 dollars off IGN LIve, which I haven’t mentioned because… It’s listed as a game, and it’s not, but if you want to go to that. I don’t know it feels like IGN is trying to get an E3-like event going which I approve of but we’ll see and yeah I requested a press badge, so we’ll see. Anyways let’s move on to the tiers. 

As always there are four tiers. The Misses, the Average, the Strong Contenders, and the Games are worth the Full Bundle price. And also as always, I’ll mention this is based on recommendation or enjoyment not necessarily sale price. 

Starting at the bottom with the Misses, there are two. The bottom is King of the Castle. I thought it was a good game, but I also struggled with who would have a big enough party to play this. I like the social games like Town of Salem or party games like Jack Box, but this one just didn’t scratch that same itch, still, if you’re a big Twitch streamer, grab this, it’d be great with a large group. 

Following that one is Mediterranea Inferno. Yeah, this was the wrong place for this title to be. Maybe everyone will love and get this game and I’ll be outed as completely out of touch, but I don’t think so. I get the intention but man, this didn’t work for me and I wonder who is going to be excited by the title. 

And you know what, we have enough titles, I’ll show the tier list so far. 

After that, we can just move on to the next tier. At the bottom of the Average Tier is Bravery and Greed. I’m not a fan, I’m done with the game after an hour, but if I had some buddies over and we wanted to play a beat ‘em up, this would work even if we got through it in that hour. Still, I don’t see a reason to play it multiple times, especially solo, but maybe it’s better with friends, that old chestnut. 

With that, we have the other game in the Average Tier, Amanda the Adventurer. This is a short game, but I think it’s a good scary motif that works for the short time it’s around. The puzzles were going to be the make-or-break-it moment but maybe I just was too scared to piece together the puzzles. 

At the halfway mark, we’ll show the tier list once again, four titles down, four titles left, and that means it’s time to start with the Strong Contenders. 

We’ll start at the bottom with Loddlenaut. I struggle with how to say the game, but it’s just a great little chill experience, and I do think more people should be checking this out. I just love the idea of cleaning the ocean and seeing what you can find out there. 

And at the top of the Average tier. This is borderline but It’s Steelrising. Some people will go crazy for this, but I do still think of it as the B-tier of Souls-like, maybe I’m wrong but if so, I hope you enjoy the bundle. 

This means we look like this, and with Yakuza left, we already know where that’s going. So let’s talk about the other game. 

The bottom of The Full Bundle is…. Yakuza Like A Dragon. Wait what. Yeah, Yakuza didn’t top my list but this is still such an incredible title, and one of the best of the series, absolutely worth picking this choice if you don’t own it. It’s an excellent story, and I honestly think it’s the story that Yakuza 6 should have told. But I’ll let you discover why I say that. 

With that said, let’s find out what the game of the month is… and it’s Hi-Fi Rush. Honestly, I meant what I said before. Everyone should give this game a shot, it has so much character, there’s a great sense of humor here, a fantastic job by the whole team, and it shines. You know I do have something else to say about it, but let me finish the official review. 

That’s it for the Humble Choice, now normally I talk about another bundle and here, It’s Fungeon Crawlers, I don’t know most of the games, but that’s another bundle you can check out.

Now instead, I hope I can take a moment and hop on my high horse. I want to quickly address something that does bother me. So the day the Humble Choice came out, Microsoft released the news that Tango Gameworks was closed down by them, and that sucks,  Tango Gameworks made Evil Within 1 and 2, They made Ghostwire which was impressive, and Hi-Fi Rush, which a lot of people were excited for last year.

But Hi-Fi Rush always was a bit kneecapped, it stealth launched onto Game Pass, which is good, but had very little press or PR. It just appeared one day, and that would be great, but now the studio is closed. What the hell?  It sucks because Tango Gameworks is one of the few remaining studios that I felt produced unique games in the publisher lead ecosystem of the game industry. Indies are still there, yes I bought Hades 2, and it is worthy, but hearing them shut down Tango the same day it’s in Humble Choice. Damn, man… Damn. 

Alright with that out of the way, we can conclude. If you like this, consider subscribing. I try to do this every month, I do have a couple more videos I want to make, but I also am expecting to have limited time for the rest of the month so… maybe we’ll have an extra video this, next, or the month after.  I’ve also linked my Twitch Stream recording if people want to see more of the games than you get in 60-second chunks here. 

Anyways. Like, Subscribe, you know the rest. Click the videos on the screen, please! 

See You Next Time.