Hoodwink - Rankout

**WARNING! LANGUAGE!!! CAN'T ENTER UNLESS YOU'RE AT LEAST 16 YEARS!**

There are so many role-playing games that didn't really get that much praise upon release. Most of them came from popular franchises that are successful such as the *Final Fantasy* franchise. They only have 2-3 games that are bad such as *Final Fantasy II*, *Final Fantasy XIII* and its spin-off sequel in 2013, and last but not least, *Final Fantasy XIV*, the old, rushed version than the more timely planned and successful MMO game.

But there is one role-playing game that made the media outlet go apeshit. That being: *Hoodwink*, the worst fucking game ever made by Imaginate's across-the-street rival Kiddosoft. I got a early copy of this game and I gotta say, *Hoodwink* is a pile of dogshit and it's nothing but a lifeless, unworked knock off of my franchise *Heroes*. No for real, this game almost copies EVERYTHING from *Heroes*, except that it's even worse.

## Story

Where do I even begin? Well, I usually tell the story before going to the actual business but sometimes it contain spoilers. Consider this as spoilers free since the game is a utter shitfest.

Let's just say that the story feels like some kind of horrible nightmare! It follows Kennedi as she was framed for releasing the unimaginables, a race of evil monsters, which causes lots of organizations being hellbent on trying to take her down. To clear her name and prove herself innocent, Kennedi embarks on an 'adventure' and gains a band of heroes in order to find and defeat the culprit who is disguised as her. I gotta say, the plot for this game is so fucking boring and shit. It's doesn't even sound like you're gonna have any fun playing through the story like most RPGs does. It just feels like they took it from a kids platformer or a kids movie and puts it in a game that is for TEENS AND ADULTS.

## Characters

Now for the characters. We have Liberty as a lesbian, Jason but he's a jerkass bitch of a hero, Roy but instead he's a GIRL AND he's also a lesbian who is in a relationship with Kennedi, Vanessa bitch-ass, a generic stereotypical punk girl who wears the same clothes all day everyday with taking a fuckin' shower, Negaman's fucked up cousin who shapeshifts into Kennedi stupid-ass, a big bust girl to tries so hard to look edgy but can't, an idiotic black hoe, and last but not least, Romeo's shitty clone...

Yeah, I can pretty tell almost every character is copying off of my characters. and you know what's worse about these guys? THEY'RE ALL JERKS! Except for Kennedi and another character named Sansie. Both of these guys are the only ones who are nice. But geez... Keigo is a straight up dickhead and a jerky asshole to everyone, including his student Kennedi. He's like so one-dimensional and never develops any kind of character in him. Take a look at this shit: Chloe: "I don't like the look of your face, Keigo." Keigo: "I don't like the look on YOUR face, am I complaining?" WHAT A CUNT!

Speaking of jerkass characters, Kennedi just looks like shit! Face it, she's just a literal copy of Liberty: the sailor outfit, the rowdy yet blissful attitude, they want to become heroes from their mentors and they did, Kennedi is totally copying the fuck outta my girl! Kennedi doesn't even look that original. She just look like Haruhi Suzumiya, only exception is her hair, which is longer than Haruhi's short hair. Hell, the colors on her sailor outfit just looks familiar, but it does has more red on her.

Chloe feels so generic and shitty cuz she's lesbians with Kennedi...sounds really forcing, isn't it, game? I have no problem with LGBT or its community, I mean I did once before but not anymore. However, making someone lesbians with another characters really feels forcing and it just don't feel right. It can only happen once 2 same-gender characters are fallen in love. Kennedi x Chloe is just garbage and it never works because it's a load of shit. Now to Vanessa...I don't know, this game treats Vanessa like shit. She barely talks with her friends, she's very useless in cinematic scenes, NOTHING! She's. That. Bad. Now let's look at Jillian. Honestly, fuck Jillian. Despite the fact that she looks cool, she has like a very jerky attitude and somewhat suggestive. There's even one point where she dreams of having sex with Keigo... what kind of fucking asshole is this bratty bitch? Here we have Insido who shapeshifts into Kennedi. To be honest, Insido is like the only character who acts like an ACTUAL fictional character than everyone else. He acts like he's IN THE GAME! There goes Paige who tries so hard to look and be cool but she always fails...well just give up, you whiny dumbass. You keep trying and things get worse, even for you! There goes Monoka who is a generic character...yeah, that's all I can say about her. And lastly, Sansie. One of the 2 ONLY nice characters alongside Kennedi. By the way, I haven't even describe Kennedi yet.

FUCK Kennedi. Despite her nice attitude, she always does dumb mistakes, which makes the team get more hostile to each other even more. WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH THIS GAME'S CHARACTERS!? Kennedi likes Keigo being a jerkass to her, she friend-zoned Vanessa, she always argues with Jillian...KENNEDI ISN'T EVEN TRYING TO BE BETTER, SHE JUST SUCK! FUCK YOU KENNEDI! At least Rex, another generic RPG protagonist, is at least BETTER than your try-hard ass.

## Gameplay

The gameplay...What can I really say to sugar coat this? This game is the epitome of mediocrity and unsuccessfulness. Two different types of quests were available for players: story quests, which were unlocked as characters accumulated experience points (EXP) and raised their experience level while unlocking new abilities, and Levequests (leves), side quests accessed through the Adventurers' Guilds. Levels were broken down into multiple types, focusing on gathering or combat. Levequests were associated with particular non-playable characters (NPCs). As the player completed leves, they gained favor with three different factions and unlocked new abilities, with rewards only coming from the NPCs within the factions who issued the quest. Gaining favor also unlocked a new type of level called Faction leves, which depleted a character's favor when completed.

Compared to *Xenoblade Chronicles 2*, where party-based gameplay is forefront at all times, the gameplay in *Hoodwink* was adjusted so that players could go for longer periods without joining a party. There was no auto-attack option, with each action needing a manual input while an enemy was targeted. Each action used up a stamina bar. Through defeating monsters, crafting items, and completing quests, players accumulated EXP which, when a certain threshold was reached, automatically incremented the player's level. The player's level affected attributes such as HP (health/hit points), MP (magic/mana points), and the number of abilities available to them. WHAT KIND OF FUCKING GAMEPLAY IS THIS!? What's worse is that the enemies' AI is a smart-ass. They always read your moves every 10 seconds! This feels impossible! Boss battles are so easy and they're just straight up bad, constant framerate drops once something climatic happens, FaN sErViCe!? Did I forgot to tell you that there's no difficulty?

## Conclusion

To end it all off, FUCK *HOODWINK*! This game makes no sense! Like, what was the POINT of all this!? Lazy, frustrating combat, one-dimensional jerkassed characters who are a bunch of fuckin' idiots, overuse of suggestive themes and fan service, broken LGBT representation, FUCKING EVERYTHING! *Hoodwink* gets... F out of fucking S. And of course, fuckin' spare me with all the: "This game isn't that bad, even on the Switch, you whiny little shit". Fuck you for saying it's not that bad. That's WHY we don't get the best RPGs on Switch. That's even WHY the Switch's library of games are SHIT (except for the great ones). Let it be known that *Hoodwink* is not just the worst RPG game on Switch but the WORST fuckin video game ever made...by Kiddosoft.