This is a very good deck builder, very addictive, and you can create amazing combos and synergies with the cards. Plus, the game has a lot of personality, which is something that doesn't come around very often in this particular scene. However, truth be told, in the final act, no matter how good your deck may be, two bad draws in a row might be all it takes to undo your entire work. C'est la vie, I guess.
Summary: Paradise Killer is a remarkable game but not a remarkable investigation game. The outstanding lore, environment, characters and atmosphere elevate PK so high its weak investigation mechanics were not enough to bring the overall experience down. I bought PK on a whim after reading a review here on GOG in which the reviewer compared PK to Outer Wilds, a game I'm very fond of. This comparison only sticks on a very surface level though. In Outer Wilds the information gathered by the player is passive. It sits on your ship's log. It's up to the you how to interpret it and how to act on it. In PK the clues you gather that are scattered around Island 24 are automatically interpreted by your character Lady Love Dies. She spells it all out, leaving nothing for you to conclude or observe yourself. Whose knife is it, timeline contradictions, mismatch between official reports and evidence and so on so forth. You don't need to read or pay attention to anything. Just roam and scour the island after highlighted objects, talk to people from time to time and in a few hours your Starlight log will have all you need to start pointing fingers before the judge. No exaggeration. All I said in the paragraph above is irrelevant though. At least for me. People looking for a game like Phoenix Wright could potentially be disappointed by what PK has to offer. I wasn't looking for anything like it so I was not disappointed. On the contrary, after I finished the trial I just couldn't leave Island 24. I felt like I was going to miss it somehow and proceeded to stand on top of the Zigurat overlooking the Island for a good 20 minutes, just taking it in. That never happened to me before in any other game. The world and lore are so well realized and unique. Little details like the ghosts, the mementos and the bar tidbits. Shinji (the best character in the game). The aesthetic and music. It all came together so well throughout and in the end that I fell in love with this game. Perfect 25.
I'd totally understand if this was an old game breaking into a new unexplored genre with foundations not yet established. But this is a 2016 game and the turn-based combat genre was nothing new back then. It was already very well established. XCOM misses the mark on almost every aspect that makes turn-based combat work. 1) Clarity. The maps in this game are a complete visual mess. It's like the graphical team never spoke a word to the map design team and vice-versa. There is so much clutter everywhere you can barely make out what the map has to offer in terms of tactics. Clarity should have been the priority. 2) AutoCAD-like UI design. Navigating through different layers of the map is nothing short of unpleasant. Why not give the player the ability to select which layer of the map he wishes to see at a certain moment? The simple act of looking for windows in a building is a chore. Everything gets in the way of you having a clear picture of what is going on. 3) Make it quick and painless. The enemy turns take so long to complete and they have this weird way of playing out in which the enemy moves from A to B and then after it stops it takes its time, thinks about life, and only then it attacks. One should follow the other quickly without wasting your time. 4) What you see isn't what you get. What is actually going on in a particular scenario should at some point override whatever background calculations the game is doing in order to come up with numbers that will determine the outcome of your actions. A lot of times there is a clear disconnect between what is actually happening and what the game thinks is happening. I'm on one side of a barrel and the enemy is on the other. The game should account for situations like that and give both parts a 100% shot, cover be damned. Instead the game puts you constantly in probability scenarios that should belong in a Naked Gun movie. The same disconnect happens with line of sight as well. The alien designs are terrible.The end.
Looks can be deceiving and this is a hardcore game by nature in all its major aspects. Combat is hard and gets increasingly harder as you progress. But that alone should not discourage you since the game gives you a lot of tools (utilities, perk cards and magical items) in order to overcome bosses and difficult areas. If a game makes me evaluate my inventory in search for tools that could help me get past an obstacle I count that as a positive (like equipping blessed items in Demon's Souls to get through Valley of Defilement). Some enemies though attack too fast without warning (specially a few bosses) and that is not something I particularly like. Also, bosses' movesets rely too much on the old formula of fast attack, followed by fast attack, followed by delayed attack. The stars of the show, however, are the world and the exploration. Tunic does not hold your hand and tells you where to go and what to do next. You have to figure it out yourself by piecing together clues from an in-game manual whose pages are scattered around the world. If a game gives me that kind of agency I consider that a positive. Hell if a game is engaging to the point of making me take notes irl I consider that a positive. I'll admit I had to resort once to a walkthrough in order to get to an area I knew I had to go to but couldn't figure out myself how to get there. So even with the right pages in hand sometimes this game can be a little cryptic. Never underestimate the in-game manual and always be on the lookout for little details on it. I can't say anything about the story because, to be honest, I know nothing about it even after finishing the game. The tone and atmosphere are spot-on and remind me a lot of Hyper Light Drifter. I honest hope this game gets the atention it deserves. We (or maybe I) need games like this. Games that engage the player in its world and make you stop, think and evaluate, and gives you that "what a well-spent time" after taste.
Savage Planet is a game that could be easily described as an action Metroidvania in wich your AI companion does all the hard work for you. As soon as you reach an obstacle that requires an upgrade in order to be conquered the AI companion will not just tell you so but also tell you what it is that you need to progress, where to find it, and exactly how to get there by providing on-screen objective markers. Some obstacles that require abilities like Super-jump (whatever the actual name is) and Stomp actually have alien inscriptions at their starting points telling you that you need such upgrades in order to progress. It really is a case in which all player agency is removed and replaced with objective markers. Case in point, there is early-on a quest that requires you finding the 3 scattered pieces of a shattered crystal. All you have to do, and the AI companion makes sure to spell that out, is enable your scan view in order to reveal lines that guide you to each of the missing pieces. No exploration and evironmental awareness. No agency. Just follow the lines. This game in a nutshell. The game is fun and addictive, and it's got personality (for better or worse depending on your taste for humor), but if you're looking for atmosphere, meaningful exploration and an interesting and curiosity-inducing world, like all good metroidvanias and games like Outer Wilds feature, look elsewhere.
