Ghostrunner is a challenging, tactical, fast paced first person "shooter/not really". Except you only just wield a sword and about 4 supernatural powers. You can instantly slice through a line of enemies, do a lethal Jedi Force Push and a couple more fancy moves. You can also dash around like you can in modern Doom games or some new boomer shooters. You also die in one hit like in Hotline Miami. BUT you get tons of checkpoints so it's not too frustrating. However Ghostrunner is still quite challenging. Thankfully you can slot little upgrade modules in your character and focus on certain moves and tactics you wanna stick with. You can also swap out upgrades freely, so you can experiment with different play-styles. The soundtrack is outstanding and you'll be grooving to these tunes while slicing and dicing through a moderately healthy variety of enemies. Speaking of which, there's not a bazillion different enemies to fight, but just enough. You'll not get bored from fighting the same enemy over and over because there's plenty of organic and robotic enemies. Plus bullets, or more specifically, laser blasts don't move too fast. So dodging enemy attacks isn't too difficult. All in all, Ghostrunner isn't too long. Main game plus DLC took around 10 hours. But it's a really fun ride and I recommend it. ALSO be sure to pick up the DLC. It's really fun and you'll find it in a bundle here on GOG for a really good price.
A Plague Tale Requiem I believe improves upon its prequel, Innocence in every way. The gameplay, stealth and combat is more brutal, fun, and tactical than in Innocence. The graphics is nothing short of mind-blowing and will bring any hardware today to its knees. The visuals are absolutely spectacular and the lip/audio-sync annoyance I noticed in Innocence is no longer present in Requiem. IMPORTANT: if you experience microstuttering and have a G-Sync Monitor, disable G-Sync for this game specifically in your GPU control panel. This eliminated microstuttering for me. Requiem has an amazing soundtrack and I find myself waiting to load my game until the main theme finishes in the main menu. All the tracks in this soundtrack are emotional, impactful tunes that really sets the scene for the entire game. As I said at the beginning, the gameplay here is a major improvement. There's more meaningful character progression with the new skills/perks to unlock. There are more weapons and gadgets to play with in Requiem and combat encounters are more tense and chaotic. I'll also never get tired of running away from tsunamis of rats. It's both horrifying and funny at the same time. Requiem's character lineup are all interesting individuals. I really enjoyed getting to know them and their motives for tagging along with Amicia and Hugo. Speaking of which, Amicia and Hugo's chemistry improves big-time from Innocence and their familial bond almost brought a tear to my eye. Just remember that Requiem is a story about a fictional spin on the Black Death Epidemic. It's obviously not a happy story and don't expect sunshine and rainbows and you won't be disappointed. I absolutely adored the 20+ hour adventure that is A Plague Tale Requiem. I highly, wholeheartedly recommend it!
So Phantom Liberty is a fun expansion with an expansive new story and a dozen or so detailed side missions. The main story revolves around 3 interesting new characters. They bark a lot of orders at you, but they've all got their own motives and were fun to interact with. The main story can branch off towards different endings depending on the player's choices (it's pretty obvious when this happens, which I appreciate). These endings are all kinda depressing, but the least depressing one was rather satisfying and maybe even a little uplifting. Don't worry though, they don't interact with the original game's endings I think (just introduces a new one). All the side missions are more unique and interesting than the numerous gigs you'll come across in the main game. This kinda makes me wish Cyberpunk wasn't as "open world" and prioritized quality over quantity, but that's a discussion for another time. I haven't played Cyberpunk before this big 2.0 update. But from what I gathered, most of the additions by the 2.0 patch are improvements in my opinion (you get this patch for free even if you don't own Phantom Liberty). The biggest and most important improvement I believe is the replenish-able inhaler/healing items. So instead of carrying around a bazillion healing items like in a fallout game, you now have an "estus flask" sort of healing item with a cooldown timer instead. Make what you will of that, but I believe it increases the challenge of most of the combat now. So with all that being said, the gameplay loop of going from Point A to Point B and talking or shooting is fun, but nothing addicting or massively enjoyable. It's a very competent shooter and narrates a buncha fun stories, but I was never really blown away. All in all, it's a fun expansion and definitely worth it if you enjoyed the main game. If not, check out the 2.0 free update and see if you like the changes.
Black Labyrinth contains numerous massive levels of super high quality. The new melee weapon is ok I guess but the new BFG - Scythe mega weapon packs a hell of a punch and is sooo satisfying to use. It also has some new music tracks, all of which are great tunes to jam to while melting the diverse new lineup of enemies with your planet launcher. New bosses were fun too and much more challenging than any of the original bosses. If you enjoyed Amid Evil at all or are a fan of the new retro boomer shooters, buying Black Labyrinth is great value and an incredibly easy recommendation.
The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood is a remarkably unique visual novel experience. The story can branch off in numerous ways and the first few times you play this will provide very different experiences. Ultimately, the gameplay consists of deck building and tons of meaningful player decisions. You play as a fortune teller and guide numerous NPCs you meet through their problems as well as your own. The story's about the fortune teller being exiled by her witchy group and she gets desperate to escape the isolation. RNG/Randomness has a small affect on the direction of the story, but as long as you build your deck properly, the player can mostly decide how the story plays out. The game length is pretty good for a visual novel. It took me about 11 hours to complete one playthrough. But most importantly, this game incentivizes multiple playthroughs. So The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood is great value considering the undiscounted price.
So One Unit Whole Blood is amazing and a classic. That's kinda obvious (besides hit-scanning enemies, ew. But you can save scum, so it's fine). Blood Fresh Supply is a remaster of that game, and it mostly does everything right. - Updated to support high framerates, FOV settings, and modern resolutions (among some other new features, but those are all i really care about). - It's got some flaws though. Specifically, there's no enemy kill counter or secret tracker for each level. So you won't know how many secrets or kills you achieved during the current level until completing it. These features are usually available in retro shooters like Ion Fury, Amid Evil And DUSK. - You also can't select the "fire" or "use" button to reload your last save upon dying. Which is really necessary in a difficult shooter like Blood, because you'll be dying a lot. You can sort of circumvent this issue by binding quickload to an easily accessible keybind (like R or F3 or whatever you want). - It's also kind of difficult to remove keybindings from actions. Or rather, it's easy but never told to the player. What you need to do if you want to unbind a hotkey is select the action in the customize inputs menu, then re-enter the already active keybind and the game should remove that specific hotkey from that action. Sorry if i explained it weird, but hopefully that helps. Anyways, that's all the complaints i have about this remaster. Since the game is so good and the asking price is a great value, it's hard to give this any less than 4 stars. So go ahead and pick this up if you're itching to replay one of the classic Build Engine games from the 90s. The game itself is a masterpiece, so Blood Fresh Supply will get an easy recommendation from me.
Turbo Overkill is a really good retro-styled shooter with some character progression mechanics you'll see in other popular modern FPS games. - I really enjoyed the Implant Mechanic where you can customize and upgrade specific parts of your arsenal. It lets you dictate how you wanna play the game. - The enemy design and variety is fantastic. This is essential for making a really good shooter, and thankfully Turbo Overkill delivers here. There's tons of different enemies that'll use different tactics in tryin to kill ya, which makes each encounter interesting and fresh. - Weapon variety is great. A couple starting weapons become too weak later on, but most weapons are viable from start to finish. Plus you can even buy upgrades for all weapons, which is a nice touch. - Graphics are actually really good despite being a unity engine, retro-themed shooter (plus it's VERY stable. Zero crashes in ~20 hours). Just keep in mind that a mid-range graphics card from the past ~4 years is required to max all settings and maintain a stable framerate. Don't worry though, it's not crazy demanding. The GPU usage just sort of surprised me. - Also there are collectables and secrets to find which will unlock cheats and secret levels. Very fun addition that makes replaying the game fun. - If there's anything I could do without, it's the vehicle sections. Driving your bike or hover car wasn't too much fun for me. These parts of the game were pretty brief though, so it wasn't too annoying. All in all, Turbo Overkill delivers a fantastic retro shooter experience and is also surprisingly long. So even at the original asking price, Turbo Overkill is an easy recommendation by me because this game provides very good bang for your buck. Give this game a try, FPS fans won't regret it.
En Garde was a lot of fun for me. The main character is voiced really well (as is all characters), and her interactions with the villains/rivals of each episode provide us with some entertaining and funny exchanges. The animations aren't numerous, but utilized very well throughout the game. I enjoyed the story quite a bit too. Our main character, Adalia, fights with some renegade fencer, steals wealth from the corrupt duke guy with her girl-crush, and explores an island for a lost treasure. All premises were very entertaining and are good groundwork for fun character development. The gameplay was definitely acceptable and I personally had a lot of fun with it. The gameplay loop is essentially distracting groups of varied enemies in numerous ways and chipping away at gauntlets of enemies one by one. You parry, dodge, distract and slice and dice your opponents depending on the situation and enemy type. Speaking of which, we get just enough different types of enemies that'll attack you using different tactics, providing the player with fresh combat situations each fight. All in all, En Garde performs very well and didn't crash once. However, keep in mind that this game can definitely bring modern hardware to their knees. But it's optimized well enough that most mid-end graphics card within the last 3+ years should be able to run this game at high-ish resolutions and maintain 60+fps. If you're worried about how short En Garde is, you can always wait for a light discount, which I believe is a perfect price for this game. It's an easy recommendation from me and I hope you give this a try!
Kindred Spirits on the Roof is about Yuna Toomi, a second year at an all girls school. She meets up with a couple ghosts and helps them on their mission to guide lesbian couples into having successful relationships. Yes it's kinda silly, but wow is it a fun read! As previously stated, this visual novel revolves around multiple couples. So while we learn a lot about everyone featured in this story, the spotlight is certainly divided between a large cast. You'll still get to know a lot about everyone featured in this story, and every relationship is fleshed out and concludes rather well. You will be left wanting more, but won't be disappointed or left in the dark wondering how everything plays out. I really enjoyed all the characters, which is rather impressive because there's a lot of them. They all have unique quirks and mannerisms and approach romance differently. One couple in particular would be rather scandalous in a real life scenario. However, narrative tools, physical attributes of the characters, and most importantly, the anime aesthetic makes many otherwise unusual situations much more acceptable and ultimately enjoyable sub-stories. There aren't too many music tracks, but they're all used in the right spots and sets the mood for scenes rather well. There are decisions the player must make. However, the "correct" choices only unlock extra scenes to view. Going in blind and picking the "wrong" answers won't change the ending or direction of the story. Plus there are spoiler free guides available. While it's sorta pricey, you get a ton to read in this visual novel. So its value is still really good! Anybody who wants to read a great romance story between cute anime characters oughta check this Visual Novel out, because it's a winner! It also has a sequel released in Manga/Comic Book format, if you want more!
Make such an amazing game??? This Dean Dodrill person created a fun 2D-Platformer-Action game with engaging RPG elements. Dust An Elysian Tail is a such a polished, complete game and it puts some games created by hundreds of people to shame. The story and particularly the dialogue between Dust and Fidget are very entertaining. The gameplay loop of slicing, dodging and spitting magic at hordes of enemies is very satisfying. The character art is exceptional too and given incredible detail. This game aged very well and deserves a playthrough by all gamers that appreciate a good 2D action game.
