Jagged Alliance 3 is a fun indie tactics game. I didn't play any of the earlier games in this franchise, so all I can compare it to would be like XCOM 1 & 2. Unlike XCOM, however, JA3 has a roster of fully voiced unique mercs with silly quirks and personalities. Along with its dark humor, the goofy recruitable mercs makes JA3 stand out from other similar games. So you can auto-resolve encounters you'd normally win if your squad is super powerful. The idea of auto-resolving fights with strong squads eliminates any tedium from seeping into this game. This is a very welcome feature for an already long game. Don't worry though, unique encounters cannot be auto-resolved. Unless you're conversing with an NPC, combat consists of almost the entire game. It's a very fulfilling gameplay loop of strategically ordering your squad around during a gunfight, looting defeated enemies and outfitting your squad with increasingly powerful equipment. You'll also intercept random attack squads in order to maintain your presence in the world map. So besides their goofy personalities, as i mentioned earlier, the recruitable mercenaries have a bunch of stats that make them proficient in certain situations. Some heal other mercs, snipe enemies from a distance and use explosives (among other roles). This makes it fun to experiment with different squad combinations. Now i only have a couple issues with Jagged Alliance 3, one of which is fixed by a mod. - So you can't actually view the exact "chance to hit" an enemy. You get some + and - symbols as well as voiced merc feedback to help you estimate how likely you are to hit an enemy. Maybe it's because I only also played XCOM 1 & 2, but this bugged me. Anyways, just search "Show Chance To Hit" in the nexus to fix this. - So the game crashed like 4 times in 50 hours of gameplay. Kinda annoying, but not nearly enough to complain too much. That's all I got. I had a lot of fun playing Jagged Alliance 3 and recommend it!
WH40K Boltgun has a lot going for it. It has an amazing arsenal of weapons. They all pack a punch, have amazing sound effects, and were balanced very well and remain useful throughout the entire game. TOGGLE SPRINT! it's a great feature that can be enabled in the settings. That way you can press and forget the sprint key. Then for the rest of the level you'll freely zip around and stomp with every step like RoboCop. Level design is great and I only got lost in one level. Some secrets are barely hidden, but most require a keen eye to spot. None of the levels were too long and never overstayed their welcome. Enemy variety is fantastic. There's tons of different creatures to fight. Some explode in one hit, but most pose quite a challenge. The bosses, in particular were designed super well and will obliterate the player if you're not careful. Unlike most of the boomer shooters I've played, Boltgun can get quite challenging. It took me quite a few tries to beat some of the bosses, and I only played on the hard setting. Some of the "Purges"/combat gauntlets can get super chaotic and it's fun as hell navigating these hectic fights and barely making it out alive. It'll be fun coming back to this on the highest difficulty. Also worth mentioning the music is damn good too. It meshes well with the atmosphere and will intensify when enemies swarm you. Dunno what else to say about Boltgun. I haven't had this much fun with a retro shooter since Amid Evil. Can't recommend it enough!
This is a very conditional recommendation. You gotta enjoy classic, super old JRPGs to have fun with Ara Fell's generic gameplay. The combat is very basic. You get a tank, healer, magic user and fighter for your party composition. Equipment is only upgraded and items are limited to potions, upgrade or crafting materials, and "relic" items with passive effects. The difficulty settings... frankly suck. I'd just stick to the normal mode, as anything higher requires you to grind out levels and money/crafting materials. This is very boring. Other RPGs that does difficulty properly, like Baldur's Gate 1 & 2 or Dragon Age Origins, forces the player to change their tactics and strategies when approaching higher difficulty modes. Maybe this is a problem with classic JRPGs and not Ara Fell specifically. The story is sort of cliche, but it gets the job done. Vampires threaten civilization with nefarious plans. The hero seeks out mysterious artifacts to save the world. The characters were interesting enough, but nothing super memorable. Don't get me wrong. I don't think this is a bad game at all. It just didn't click with me mostly because I want to overcome the game's bosses and challenges with creative strategies, not by mindlessly grinding levels and items. It kills me to give such a mixed review for a fun indie game. I must stress that this isn't a bad game, it just wasn't what I was looking for in a JRPG. I liked it enough to finish it, but probably won't ever return to it. If you DO love classic JRPGs, then I would encourage you to try Ara Fell. It offers a lot for being such an inexpensive game and you will probably have enough fun with it.
I loved Shadow Tactics and Desperados 3, and Shadow Gambit left me super satisfied too. While I feel the story suffers a little by allowing the player to choose which characters to take on each mission (reduces unique and fun banter relevant to the mission, as seen in previous games), the premise of a bunch of cursed pirates searching for the former captain's lost treasure kept me interested from start to finish. The gameplay loop of stealthily killing and hiding enemies is pretty similar to Mimimi's previous games, but the combinations of characters to use offers tons of replay value and makes each mission feel fresh. Nobody is overpowered or overly weak, and I appreciate how balanced the characters are. The DLC characters were super fun and had very unique abilities too. Allowing the player to customize how they approach each mission with different character loadouts and landing spots might've been for the better or worse. I really can't decide. The only conclusion I could make was how much I enjoyed each mission and how I never became bored. I don't know what this "sweet baby inc" controversy is all about, and i don't really care. I found all the characters very interesting and enjoyed the compelling main story too. I might've had an axe to grind if I found the writing and dialogue boring, but that didn't happen. It also doesn't hurt that the voice acting in Shadow Gambit is really impressive. This was a very long game and there's much more to do after completing the main story. It took me 40 hours to finish the campaign, and there's still plenty more completionist activities left for me to do. You definitely get your money's worth with Shadow Gambit. I encourage anybody who enjoys challenging real-time tactics games to try Shadow Gambit! Also check out the DLCs, because I had a lot of fun with them.
This is a pretty standard compilation of cute lesbian stories. The whole idea of an entire school voting on which couples they like is a very goofy premise. Some of the couples are... kind of scandalous. But the silly premise of the school voting on the "best couples" and its anime theme and character models helps you look past the improper nature of some of the romances. At the end of the day, A Kiss For The Petals - Maidens of Michael is just a bunch of heartwarming anime'ish romance stories, so who cares that some of the couples are unrealistic right? All of the dialogue is fully voiced in Japanese. I'm an "English Dub Scrub" and personally enjoy English voice overs the most, but the voice acting here is done very well (even the lewd scenes are voiced... oh my) and I appreciate that the audio quality of the voice overs is really good too. Most of the stories occur while the couples are already together. Only the main couple's story is about how they get together. Make what you will of that. While it would be nice to learn how some of the couples got together, I don't really mind one way or the other. There's a tiny bit of drama during each story, but that honestly is needed for a proper story to be told. Without any conflict whatsoever, it would be kinda boring. BUT, that's not the case in this visual novel. There's a little bit of tension and drama in each story, but they're ultimately heartwarming romances and nothing super tragic or depressing occurs. You can get the adult patch on the developer's website for free, and it adds a lot of scenes to the visual novel. They're quite raunchy, but are feel-good scenes of intimacy. In conclusion, A Kiss For The Petals - Maidens of Michael is a fun visual novel that is quite long, so the default asking price is justified. I'd recommend it to yuri visual novels fans or anybody looking for a cute romance story.
I was and still am a superfan of the classic Infinity Engine cRPGs, particularly Baldur's Gate 1 and 2. Having said that, you need to expect Baldur's Gate 3 to play more like Larian's recent Divinity Original Sin titles and less like the oldschool cRPGs, or recent Owlcat and Obsidian games. If you go into Baldur's Gate 3 with those expectations, I can almost guarantee you'll have a blast. Baldur's Gate 3 perfected Larian's party focused, turn based RPG formula. The combat is amazing and experimenting with different tactics and builds should tell you how compelling and addictive the combat is. I wish the level cap was 13 or 14 instead of 12 because I reached that cap approximately 15 or 20 hours before completing the game. It sort of discourages you from completing the last batch of quests you'll run across. On the other hand, the game quickly became pretty darn easy on Balanced mode once you became very familiar with the combat. I imagine I'll have a blast trying higher difficulty modes as it changes a lot besides enemy health. The visuals are extraordinary but not incredibly demanding on hardware. Even with high-end hardware, I easily surpassed 60 frames per second on 1440p. So all mid-end hardware should easily be able to run this game, especially with DLSS or FSR. Additionally, this game is incredibly stable and didn't crash once during the 117 hours it took me to complete it. The story is great for what is presented. Granted, everything is voiced, even the narration, which is top-notch quality by the way. So you won't experience anything incredibly deep like in Planescape Torment with its endless walls of compelling, unvoiced text. But all the characters are fleshed out very well with complete stories and interesting motives. I was left with strong feelings and impressions of all the main characters. Baldur's Gate 3 is an phenomenal RPG that I'll definitely return to every once in a while. Earns an easy recommended from me.
RoboCop Rogue City lacks polish as in it's a little rough around the edges. It does indeed have localization in Poland's native language. Anyways, I enjoyed this game a lot. It has a satisfying gameplay loop. It took me around 16.5 hours to finish. So this is definitely a complete package. Sidenote: this is a very demanding game on your hardware, but thank god for DLSS/FSR because it works wonders. When I said it lacks polish, what I mean is Rogue City was definitely made on a less than ideal budget. This isn't really a bad thing, and I'm actually impressed at how resourceful the devs are. Having said that, reloading animations, character animations and some of the voices are definitely lacking in quality. The antagonist and some of the characters weren't too interesting either. I really only found RoboCop, his cop partner Lewis, and maybe the therapist and news reporter to be compelling and interesting individuals. The main gameplay loop, however, is where the game shines. The combat is simple, but super engaging and fun throughout the entire game. The weapon variety is actually really lacking, but the signature RoboCop pistol never gets old to use (plus you can upgrade and customize it). The enemy variety is decent. There's typical goons and heavily armored human mercs and robots with an array of guns. The player's tactics won't change much. You usually just absorb most damage, juggle healing items and kill enemies quickly before you run out of health. RoboCop is a juggernaut and you feel like an indestructible tank. The campaign always has a select number of side objectives to complete and were fun distractions while trying to arrest the main villain. Rogue City isn't an open world game, so the side objectives weren't too numerous and never got boring or felt like a chore. RoboCop Rogue City isn't a masterpiece or anything extraordinary. But FPS fans and particularly those who loved the RoboCop movies will have a lot of fun here.
UsoNatsu is honestly as good as a lesbian romance visual novel can get. - It has a really high production value with great character artwork, animations and background scenery. Yes, "animation" as in the 2D character models blink, breathe and sway (sorta like in a Neptunia game). It breathes life into already interesting characters. - speaking of characters, I adore all of 'em. They all are unique, have flaws, quirks, and goals they wish to achieve during the story. We get to know all the characters very well throughout the story and their life situations are narrated thoroughly. There's also not too many characters, so the 5'ish main characters receive a lot of attention and i feel none were overlooked or cast aside. - Everyone and all dialogue is fully voiced in Japanese. As an English "Dub Scrub", I personally love English Voice Overs, like in visual novels created by Studio Élan. However, you gotta appreciate how the creators of UsoNatsu went all out and fully voiced everything in this very lengthy visual novel. It took me ~27 hours to read this entire visual novel, so a fast reader might finish it in 20 hours, and that's a LOT of voice overs. It also doesn't hurt that the quality of the voice acting in UsoNatsu is top-notch. - As previously said, you really get your money's worth with UsoNatsu. It's a pretty long visual novel. Even fast readers will probably take at least 20 hours to finish the entire story. - Graphic Content Note (or lack thereof): This is a pretty tame in terms of sexual content, as there is none. It's very PG-13 and only has scenes of characters smooching or in underwear. However, UsoNatsu does delve into very real and unfortunately common mental health issues and very imperfect living situations. So a minor warning for that kind of content. I could keep gushing and fail to find any flaws in UsoNatsu, but I think you get the idea I love it and recommend it to anyone who likes romance stories.
I don't personally enjoy online service ARPGs like Path of Exile or recent Diablo games. I accept that some recent ARPGs like Path of Exile are good, but my personal favorites of this genre are offline friendly and prioritize single-player experiences. At first, I played the crap out of Torchlight 1 and 2. But then I discovered Grim Dawn. This game has an outrageous replay value and build variety. The sky is the limit for the type of class combo you want to experiment with. Grim Dawn Is incredibly well balanced and all builds are capable of completing the game. I have sunk hundreds of hours into this game and haven't even attempted new game plus yet or end-game/max level content because experimenting with new builds is just too much fun. Legendary/super rare items are very uncommon, yet super powerful and not nearly as impossible to obtain as Torchlight 2 legendary items. Itemization was masterfully done in Grim Dawn and each legendary item are incredibly rewarding to obtain and useful to multiple types of builds. The DLCs and expansions are very fun continuations of the main game and are essential to enjoy Grim Dawn to the fullest. They're well priced and totally worth it. However, if you're unsure if you'll enjoy them, just try out the main game first. You won't miss out by waiting to buy the expansions later. As a little bonus, Grim Dawn is optimized pretty well. It draws most CPU power from one core, so a good CPU is recommended. But it is perfectly playable on super old hardware, GPUs and Operating Systems. During the hundreds of hours played, it hasn't crashed once during gameplay (only occasionally on startup with the Item Assistant mod/utility, but never while actively playing). I highly recommend Grim Dawn to any ARPG fans looking for insane replayability, build variety and great itemization. As a little bonus, it's still actively updated and maintained.
So Aftershock gives you around 10 new BIG levels and took me around 7 hours to complete. It introduces a new "rocket launcher" weapon that I thought was much needed in the original game. You'll also notice plenty of new powerups that you can actually hold onto and use whenever you want. I appreciate this very much instead of instantly activating them upon touching them like in a Quake or Doom game. If there's anything I didn't like, I personally felt that the vehicle you obtain during this expansion lingers for a level or two too long. Zooming around in a Jet Ski/vehicle thing was a lot of fun, but I enjoyed venturing through levels more on foot. Definitely not a deal breaker, but a minor annoyance that I ultimately overlooked. There's really not too much to say. With Aftershock, you're getting more high quality Ion Fury levels. So if you enjoyed the original game, you'll have a lot of fun with Aftershock.
