I really like this game. If you like Dungeon Keeper, you'll like it too. It has a pretty twisted world, dark humour, simple gameplay with a few tweaks. Basically you control both the Evil Overlord and its minions, conquer the world, kill good/slighly less evil guys, hoard gold and women. The main problem with it is that it is a strategy/action game designed for console: you move with 1 stick, move your minions with the other stick, have 4 buttons for spell selection, 2 for attack, 1 for casting, 1 for recall, 1 for guard, 2 for camera control and basically that is it. As you can guess, it does not allow you to strategize too much. The mouse/keyboard control sheme mimics this and is terrible. Too bad, since the much older Sacrifice already presented a perfect control scheme for third person action/strategy games, but Overlord restricts itself to the limits of a game controller. Yes, you have 4 kind of minions, but those doesn't offer too much strategy either: reds are your only ranged attackers, but they cannot hit anything that isn't still or large as a barn (even opponents moving directly towards them). Greens are supposed to be hit'n'run units, but they dies so fast and does so little damage, that you'll most likely use them 4 times during the whole game. Blues can resurrect, but many of the opponents can destroy your units making that impossible. Browns are solid, but nothing special. Other thing which can be negative for a lot of players: there is no map, and no direction markings where you should go, so you might stuck for a while if you pay no attention what to do and don't use walkthroughs. These might sound way too negative, but Overlord is actually pretty enjoyable. Yes, you will swear a lot when you take heavy casualities because of the terrible controls, but you will smile on the cutscenes, dialogues, and you'll feel good when reach a checkpoint. If you like the Dungeon Keeper series, you will like this game too.
..but I really do. Every few years I install it and play it through. And I enjoy every minute of it, despite I still remember the quests, trainer locations, even the dungeon maps and secret doors. Maybe because it is an RPG in the same setting and time as HoMM3, with the same monsters you've commanded in it. Maybe because this was one of the first games I've played 20 years ago. Maybe because of the flight, invisibility and other cool spells. Maybe because there is 9 classes for a party of group and you have to decide between the good and evil side, so no playthrough is exactly the same. Or maybe because its simple, pure fun: you create a party of four, go out, kill monsters and complete quests. Just four advices: - Buy the game - Install the unofficial GrayFace patch - Kill the red dragon on Emerald Islands on level5. Yeah, it is possible and it isn't even really hard, and you can arrive in Harmondale with relics or even better stuff. - Experiment: solo the game with a knight, create a party of 4 liches, anything you can think of.
This might be a little subjective, since both Commandos and the Edo era Japan is dear to me, but this game is simply amazing even for those who don't generally like stealth/tactic games. + The voice acting and music are simply awesome, and the characters actually trade dialogues depending on your actions. These really boos the immersion. + Challenges. These are not simply badges/achievements (each map has 9, 1 is always hardcore, 1 is always speedrun), but very-very smart: if you replay the levels to complete certain challenges, the game force you to think differently than before, you'll find new tricks, and get better and better. This is especially true for the speedruns. The first completition of each of the 13 missions takes around 1-2 hours. By doing challenges, you can reduce these to 2-15 minutes. + Characters. All five (+1 since Kuma is almost like a sixth character) were my favourite, bot personalitywise and skillwise. + Skills. Every character has 3+2 (the last two are limited ammo flintlock pistol and healing for each of them), and none of them are useless. What I really love are the small differences: both Yuki and Mugen has a standard attack which can oneshot guards, but mugen's animation takes only 0.9 seconds, while Yuki's take 3 secs, which has a huge impact. Similalry the corpse dragging, movement speed, etc. abilities are shared, but differ for pretty much every character. And there are no useless placeholder skills, every one of them are damn useful. - Camera. The good thing is that you can rotate/zoom it, the bad thing is that you have to. The game handles the different levels (height-wise) terribly, and 1 pixel difference can mean that you won't attack the guard, but hook to the roof. And in some part, you simply can't positionthe camera to a useful angle +The mission designs. The story is okay if not fantastic, but each mission has its own characteristics and gimmicks. I remember each one of them, which was not the case for similar games
I've tried this game because I really loved Bastion, but my expectations did not meet. The game displays an amazing combat system... just to waste it on a very short story (no, new game+ dows not count). The voice acting is amazing, the visuals are ok (the characters and eneies are well made, but the world is empty at best). The penalties for dying are fair and quite clever, and you can create dozens of different moves to adjust your style. The weakest point of the game is that the map design is terrible (you basically can't know if you activate the passage to the next zone or choose a sidetrack, and there is no turning back). Stone me to death, but the biggest problem is that the game is boring. Yeah, there is a touching story behind it, but the dramaturgy and tempo between fights and story pretty much kills it. I've alt+tabbed it more times than any other game.
Yeah, I get it. It was one of the first indie games that managed to reach the market, and provide something different. The atmosphere and the art style are both nice. But these factors don't make up for the fact, that the game can be finished in an hour, the replayability factor is zero, and you could tear our your hair because of the ovesimplified and unresponsive controls. Yeah, 4 direction and an action button can sound nice, but you will die a lot, for pressing an extra buttton, or a ms too long, and falling from a rope/ladder. You can find way better games at this pricerange in these days.
I've played with many adventure games over the years, but I list very few of them in my favourite games. Most of them were either pixel hunting, had very illogical puzzles/boring world/characters, or had very boring stories. By contrast, Memoria was an instant love: first the graphics and the movements of the characters made me think it will be some generic low budget adventure game, but oh boy my opinion changed fast. Maybe the greatest aspect of the game is the story telling: compared to other games I couldn't had enough story and lore info, and clicked through every dialogue options I've seen with anticipation. I especially liked the switching between the two story lines, the pacing was perfect between them. There is no pixel hunting in the game, you can even turn on features to highlight the hotspots and help in the combinations. The questlog is quite interesting in style, and was really helpful. Most of the puzzles were statisfying, some were challanging, and only 1-2 seemed illogical to me. The only thing I regret is I didn't know it was a sequel when I've started the game, so most likely I've missed some references... but I've bought and installing the first episode at this very first moment :)
Shovel Knight was one of my favourite platform games. I was eager to try out a new version, but my experience was kinda mixed. Pro: - It feels like Shovel Knight - The Specter Knight has a similar, yet different mechanism. - The story is touching (and is basically a prequel) Contra: - The developers put way less heart in the game - It is much shorter (normal game can be finished in a few hours) - A lot of bugs - The controls are less perfected, sometimes even frustrating - Most characters and levels are practically the same, and have only a few lines of dialogue In short: buy it if you really like shovel knight, and don't want to invest in Treasure Trove, or you would just like to get a taste from the series. Don't buy it if you want to experience the best of the series.
I've played many older games, but somehow I've never even touched the original Outcast. I was aware that it was one of the first open world games and about its cult status, but seemed like the graphics and gameplay didn't age well. Then came the second contact, which I've given a try. I've finished the game in a single weekend not because it is very short, but because I've enjoyed the hell out of it. I was pleasantly surprised since I've expected simpler mechanics and way the controls be way more sluggish. The graphics were quite okay, and I've rarely experienced glitches (like when the carts play spinning wheel, etc). I've needed to load around 5-6 times in the whole playthrough because I've been stucked between some rocks, but at least no crash. What really dragged me in was the world: so alien, yet so familliar. The NPCs had character, and they were certainly thinking in a different way than humans. There were surprisingly lot named characters, and tons of quests, though a lot of them was just "go there, speak with xy". The story was okay, there were a few things that seemed illogical, but the endgame answered most of them. There were a lot of foreign names for people, places, religion, etc, but the game helped by adding a lexicon and in-text explanations, so I've learned them way faster than in other games, which helped immersion. Also my actions really weakened the enemy army, which was an awesome mechanism. The combat was very simple, though I've loved that most of the enemies stay dead, and I can check the map before I start eliminating them. What I really hated though that there is only 1 place in the game I could get new weapons, and it seemed logical to avoid that place in the start, so most of the enemies were out of picture when I've got the chance try them out on someone. The platformer parts were way worse, but bearable. The in-game menu was very cool. I've always had objectives and wasn't restricted by walls. This game is open world at its core.
