The premise of the game is cute and the gameplay loop is fun. But it's balanced in a really weird way that stops the player from having too much fun or doing things how they want to. Basically there are 6 types of clientele and they each pay in their own unique currency. Every one of these currencies is required, which means that to play the game "correctly" you must appeal to all 6 groups simultaneously. So you can't just have a cozy tea room for witches or a hipster coffee bar all on its own, you are all but required to have a big mishmash of everything. I imagine just about every player's cafe ended up being the same confusing pub-diner-retro-magical-hunting-lodge, especially if they couldn't afford the decorations they actually wanted. The currency progression is really slow as other reviewers have mentioned. I just used Cheat Engine to give myself more money and the game was a lot better for it. One last thing - Arvel spouts a bunch of swearing, out of nowhere? I had assumed this game was kid-friendly and was playing it along with my 7 y/o, but like, my mistake I guess?
This game has some ups and downs. The art design and direction are the obvious strengths. The world and its characters look unique and cool and make you want to explore. The idea of playing as a radioactive psychic raccoon wielding a baseball bat katana is definitely alluring. The world, though, is very empty and there is very little to actually do in the "safe" zones other than get from point A to B. If, say, you wanted to test out your new weapon mods, you will have to wander around for a while to find even basic enemies to fight. There's a few shops, shrines, villages, and points of interest, but they are almost all identical to each other. The danger zones by contrast are pretty fun to explore but you have to invest a lot into resistances before you can even go into them. The plot is almost nonsensical based on how it is presented to me in the game. I will just be wandering around in the grass and then suddenly be given a quest to, like, "Attack the fort", with zero context or explanation of what that is or why I would want to do it. There are a lot of interjecting cutscenes like flashback sequences or shots of enemy tribe leaders swearing revenge on me or whatever. Once, these cutscenes glitched out and I had two of them playing at the same time. Everyone in the world has known me since childhood and is watching my every move, apparently. Dudes in a house are levitating with no explanation. Nothing makes sense. Combat is kind of OK but the movements can feel really janky - mostly the slow motion effect is overused to the point that it becomes disorienting. There is very little weight to my attacks, or even nice audio feedback or anything, so stronger weapons feel like they do nothing but just wear down bullet sponges a little faster. One more thing - menus get very complicated with upgrades, gear, stats, mods, etc. Very easy to get lost and it takes hours to understand it. Also, LIGHT BLUE TEXT ON BLUE BACKGROUND (resistance % stats) - who approved that?!?!
This is a tough game. It's not for kids since it's more about hardcore survival and bloody dismemberment. The art is great, the story is alright, the replay value looks to be pretty high because of the different combinations of items and specializations you can work towards. First playthrough was about 7 hours. I would compare this game to Momodora in its general style, and Noita because of its particle system where you can, for example, spill oil on the ground and light it on fire to create a trap. There is a lot of menuing to constantly switch between different relics and weapons, and I wish there were an easier way somehow, like a weapon wheel. I'm playing on normal difficulty and even then it can feel frustrating. You'll die to a single poison bottle that you didn't see, or a magic spell that traveled through the walls (looking at you undead mage w/ ice orb). Bosses will take a lot of retries until you figure out your best strategy, which can be annoying but it does force you to think and strategize around weaknesses and what you have available. ---- Since this is 1.0 release day version, here's some feedback for the developer: The following behaviors seem bugged or not working properly: - HP recovery from hitting a skeleton with Holy Bottle - MP recovery from strikes with Best Friend - HP recovery on fire with Kitchen Gloves - 1/2 MP reduction from Rune Stone I would really like the ability to manually re-trigger autosave statues, because if I'm right before a boss and autosave at 14 HP with the wrong relics, I need to do the menuing to heal up and change inventory on every single attempt, which is annoying. Specifically the autosaves around the Dakimakura fans are strange. I save at the one to their right, then go through the gauntlet and come back around to pass the statue below them, outside the latrine, except it's already lit. So if I die to, say, the ghost in the latrine, I have to go through the gauntlet room again. Seems like an oversight.
This game is just mindless fun messing around with all the different weapon options, shards, enemy types, and hidden stuff, of which there is a lot. The gameplay is solid and feels, well, like Castlevania. Like other reviewers have said, in that sense it's just more of the same, but it's not bad either. The visuals are nice. The story is....there. It's OK. The music is completely forgettable. There were about 3 separate times where I had no idea where to go next so I just wandered aimlessly around the castle for an hour. Difficulty is just about right except some of the boss fights are total pushovers. Some gimmicks are fun but a lot of them are pointless. I tried for a near 100% run my first time and it took 28 hours, so at least the game's not super short and it has a bit of postgame content with secret boss battles and stuff.
Here's a game that is - in very many aspects - a clone of Diablo, and is not ashamed of it. The gameplay is the same, and most of the core mechanics (randomized world, loot, town portals, socketed items, cooperative multiplayer) are nearly identical. The only real differences I see are in the world design, the player classes, and a generally "lighter" art direction than its gore-heavy progenitor. Fortunately, if you like this kind of thing, this game nails the sweet spot pretty well. Combat and loot are satisfying, the pace of the game is consistent, the different classes have some interesting abilities, and the boss fights are more complex than just "stand there and shoot it a lot". I imagine gameplay is even better when playing with friends on co-op, but unfortunately I didn't get the chance to try that. The hardware requirements are basically trivial on any modern system, so if you have an older computer lying around, there's a good chance it can run this game for multiplayer. My only real criticisms with the game are the limited selection of character classes (only 4), and the fact that the systems don't quite have the same depth as Diablo in terms of weapon and armor customization and some of the more "obtuse" things like transmutation and rune words. But that's fine, nobody said the game has to have that stuff. The core gameplay loop is polished and fun and that's the obvious focus here. For just a few dollars here on GoG, this game is absolutely worth the money.
This is a fairly simple, straightforward game which you can tell has had a lot of love put into it. The details in the characters, the voice performances, animations, and sound show a lot of production value even for a "AA" game such as this. I have to say, though, that there are probably many people who won't enjoy playing through this. It's a "cinematic-driven" game that progresses rather slowly, and the parts with the most gameplay can still feel rather hand-holdy (literally, as Hugo is holding Amicia's hand and suggesting what to do next). The stealth mechanics are straightforward at first but do get more interesting as you unlock the ability to light fires, knock out guards, lure rats, etc. which adds a lot of complexity to each encounter. Personally I enjoyed my playthrough and the story, and didn't hit any annoying glitches or really frustrating parts, so I'd say this was worth the money. And if you are looking for another French rodent-based stealth action game (who isn't?) then I actually felt this game was very similar to Ghost of a Tale, which I also enjoyed a great deal.
I'll try and keep it short - Immersion is great. Music is great. - I love the pixelated aesthetic and art direction - Difficulty is a bit high, I believe mostly because enemies have such short reaction times and long weapon range. Would be nice if this came as a configurable difficulty setting. - Audio logs are awkward to manage if you're trying to look back and find details you need. Bioshock Infinite made this idiot-proof by telling you explicitly "You got an audio log with a code 5-3-2-1"; maybe this could be turned on or off in the settings the same as "Point camera towards hints" currently works. - Pickup items, particularly important stuff like key cards, are a bit hard to locate at a glance when they're on a shelf with lots of other junk. I would appreciate another configurable option to highlight these items for players that have difficulty with it. - Many wall and floor textures look identical which makes it easy to get lost. I realize this was an issue with the original though. The minimap is a lifesaver. - Speaking of minimap, sometimes when I've fully explored a room there are still edge vertices that are not filled in, making it look like there's a door or unexplored exit somewhere when there's not. This is a minor annoyance - It would be nice also to be able to mark notes on the map, like "Level 2 access door", so I can remember what places I need to backtrack to. Overall I think this is heading in a good direction and I'm excited to play the full game when it's finished.
I have played all of the games in the series, and I believe this is the best one out of all of them. Each entry so far seems like it has one annoying flaw that holds it back from being really fun - the map being either too confusing or too simple, backtracking, selectively useful abilities, gameboy technical limitations, etc. But I finally feel like this entry has it all perfect. Even coming off the heels of Half-Genie Hero, as soon as you start this one you'll notice it feels different. The controls are somehow even tighter. The animations and backgrounds are fantastic as always. Voice acting is done for many of the characters. Fully animated cutscenes! Enemy and character variety is huge. And I think the balance of game mechanics is just about right. Mechanically, here is what there is: - The mostly linear layout of Half-Genie Hero is gone. The map is a single interconnected overworld with a lot of verticality, like classic Metroidvania. Fast travel is provided between the main regions to reduce tedious backtracking. - From the overworld are gates to self-contained dungeons designed with the classic Zelda formula. Go in, explore, fight the midboss, get an ability, unlock the dungeon, fight end boss. - Abilities are instantaneous transformations that work like the pirate tools from Pirate's Curse. They are very fast, versatile, and fun. - Dances are done for more "specialized" actions (not transformations), but even then there are a surprising number of ways that each ability gets used. For example, Rejuvenate will heal you, make plants grow, damage undead, and purify water. - Monsters drop cards which function a bit like the soul system from Aria of Sorrow, letting you choose a set of specific buffs you can equip to match your play style. My main complaint is the somewhat lackluster boss encounter design. There are multiple Risky encounters which are virtually identical, and the main bosses felt like awkward pushovers. Still, I highly recommend this game.
This game is a lot of fun. It manages to strike a perfect balance between farming / management simulator and adventurous exploration game as you go and explore the Range to find new slimes and new resources to upgrade your ranch. I play it with my 5 year old daughter and she is in love with all of the cute slimes and their behaviors. If you like Harvest Moon or Rune Factory then I would absolutely recommend this.
This comes pretty close to scratching my Riven itch, which shouldn't be a surprise considering who made it. The puzzles here are... fine. I think the difficulty is just right. They are all incorporated in a diagenic way into this game world which helps make the story at least somewhat believable. However, as a result of them needing to be narratively incorporated into the game world, a lot of them end up feeling kind of the same. A majority of the puzzles are based on teleportation (the game's main gimmick) and its combination with rotating rooms, rotating pathways, etc. In general they all seem to fall into the same realm of spacial awareness and reasoning, as well as needing to thoroughly explore the world to find clues. I personally would have liked to see more variety with logic, math, language puzzles, etc. One aspect of the design I appreciated was how the scope of the exploration was carefully limited. Rarely are you faced with a dozen new paths and puzzles to explore. Rather, the game does a pretty good job of limiting the branches that are made available to you at once - solving one puzzle might open up 3 new routes, one of which is a dead end with a clue, one is a path looping backwards, and the last is a new puzzle. This design makes it easy to keep a mental checklist of where you should be going next. I'm happy to see that there are lots of different options for interactivity (traditional point and click, VR, etc.) though I didn't really find they added to the experience a whole lot. There is a lot of backtracking to the game and lots of times where you are just walking from one side of the world to the other. My other main gripe is the load times, which happen on each teleport. Game developers: I know my machine has enough memory. Can't you just... keep both areas loaded at once? Because some of these puzzles involve teleporting back and forth 10+ times, and it is much more frustrating to do when there's a 20 second loading screen each time.
