never seen somebody build this kind of chain before in my life

(from the EU vs LATAM crew battle on www.twitch.tv/ascensionpuyo)

Odin Sphere Leifthrasir (flushed)

This might be outing myself as a scrub but the menuing to use items and plant consumables drove me up the wall. Apparently it made more sense in the original game whereas the faster pace of the remaster makes it less suitable? Oh well

SANABI (cyberpunk grappling hook platformer, ++-)

The last third of the game has you play through the past areas again, but with your full set of abilities, and it's really fun to flow state everywhere chaining grapples and enemy kills.

Game is kinda simple without all the unlocks though :(

Gunfire Reborn (furry roguelite fps, +-/)

Has the same issue as every other roguelite where the metaprogression treadmill is the only thing keeping any given run from feeling like a waste of time.

The core gameplay itself is... fine? but only after getting to the later branches of the skill tree.

Valdis Story: Abyssal City (action rpg metroidvania, ++-)

I actually started this back in 2014 but dropped it <1hr in cause I got the bright idea to play it on stick (bad idea)

Felt like picking it up again on controller... and discovered that for some reason dashing uses a hadouken command input

Shape of Dreams, demo (MOBA roguelike +/)

I don't really do roguelikes, but I still have a large PSO-shaped hole in my heart...

This isn't it though. Nice aesthetic and technically competent, but I can't imagine myself running this over and over. Maybe it'd be more fun with coop, but for how long?

missed a lot of the good stuff early in the bracket because I was busy TOing but here's some of the Top 8 plays I liked