Twin stick shooter boss arena with a neat concept that feels a little half baked. Gameplay: Move with the left stick, shoot with the second. Each boss is a timed fight, but getting hit also reduces your time serving as your health. You can't restore time/health which was a good choice because each hit adds to the pressure of the time limit. You still get one final hit after time runs out so it's never feels cheap. I beat a few bosses well over the time limit because I got scared and got careful. There's no inherent dodge/guard so bosses can feel very robotic to ensure your normal movement speed is always enough to avoid getting hit. Their are active powers that can be purchased with time (reducing your healt), but they are a little lackluster and I found myself using the homing and overpower skills primarily. The difficulty is pretty reasonable. I would have like a slightly harder mode. Visuals: Colorful and easy to distinguish terrain, bosses and anything that can damage you. My only complaint is that the bosses don't feel consistant. You fight anything from a totem to a giant skill which no ryme or reason why they look like that. It's fine for the gameplay, but it makes the world feel incongruous. Audio: Good sound design, but unremarkable. Story: Very little here. You're frontloaded a pictured text crawl, and you get some quotes inbetween bosses, but there's nothing to hold on to. It would have been neat if each boss had some backstory you could unlock. Extras: There isn't much to do once you beat the last boss. There's a challenge mode where you fight random bosses with random abilities, a daily challenge and an arena where you can fight anything with any power. It would have been great to have specific challenges like 'beat this boss in x seconds', but there's just nothing. Shame because there's promise in this concept. Last word: Definitely worth it when on sale for $5. I enjoyed my time, but the lack of extras can't justify the normal $15.
A gothic adventure set in the early industrial Russian country side. Immerse yourself in the culture witches and sin. Narrative: Your beloved is dead. To bring him back you must unseal the Black Book to grant your wish. To do so you must find the proper chorts (demons) with the power to break the various seals. Travel the countryside seaking those that can help. There's a 'twist' in the story, but it's sort out of nowhere and not really interesting. Mechanics: I don't usually like card based combat, but BB manages to make it interesting. You get two types of pages; black to mainly attack and white to mainly defend/heal. You chain the pages together to deal tons of damage, debuff/buff or heal. The trick is BB manages to make the cards mostly all good. I seldom found a card I wasn't able to make work. Despite this I still found the game challenging. The other part of the game is how you choose to help or curse the various villagers you encounter. Cursing increases your sins, but gets you robust rewards. Helping can get you some rewards, but not nearly as many. Sins can have an effect later on. Visuals: The graphics are a combination of basic 3d modelling a cell shading, to an extent. This basic art style works well for the chorts as it gives them a more alien appearance, but it results in the humans, and the protag, looking a little dopey. The spell visual effects are also lack luster and don't really convey 'power'. The environments benefit in the same way as the chorts. The simplistic style makes the whole work a bit more mysterious and ephemeral. Presentation: Good music, but somewhat forgettable (except the collected songs). Although you can have 3 sets of pages for your combat you can't choose which set to use when battle begins. If you die, you can change later, but it would have been nice to pick before the battle. It would also be nice to have a 'test' battle as an option to play around with page sets. As it stands you can only test in production.
An adorable (yes, I said it twice) 'Where's Waldo' style game where you look for cats in gorgeous hand drawn maps. Narrative: The castle is cursed! The cats are cursed! Your love is cursed! Find the cats to break the curse! Mechanics: You are given a beautiful and complex, image and you need to find the cats. Find a cat, click on the cat, break the curse. Find enough cats and you unlock the next area. Some of them very well hidden, as well. Visuals: Lovely hand drawn maps. Adorable cats. Presentation: It's very simple. The music is relaxing and there isn't anything complex. Why are you still reading this? Go help those cats!
Overall, the game is a nice little metroidvania with mediocre combat and a repetative soundtrack. The platforming is decent, but suffers from some questionable puzzle/platforming choices. Visuals: Retro style, but with proper enhancements. The pixel graphics are nice, but somewhat samey. The sprites are well made and animate cleanly. Narrative: Not much, but nothing offensive. You are Zoe and have been summoned from a far off land to help the land of Alwa free itself from the evil Vicar. It's almost comical how incompetent the locals are. Mechanics: Swing your staff to hit an enemy. The bosses are pretty lackluster despite the game boasting about it's difficulty. The main part of the game is the puzzle/platforming. The spells are intended to help you traverse the world, but this can get tedious. Little things like like needing a block just to reach a high ledge when a high jump would work. It makes re exploring the world uninteresting. Also, I have 8 main buttons on my controller. Why are 5 of them unused? Holding up to cast a spell then R1 to switch spells is terrible. Presentation: I don't like when games condescend me and Alwa seems to enjoy doing this. There is an 'assist' mode which really just adds basic features, but the message reminds you that this game was intended to be a challenge! One of the assist options is to add items to the map (but not all items) which I turned on, but the game reminds you constantly when you die (ASSIST MODE IS ON) as though it's a mark of shame. Items being on maps is pretty normal. Don't insult me because I don't have a memory suited to rememeber each and every room in the game. You have to find nearly every power up so the only thing left to collect are the orbs which are only used to reduce boss HP, but the bosses are simple so I left many orbs uncollected because I didn't have the powerup to reach them wasn't worth going back for (orbs are not marked on the map even with assist on).
I only managed to play for about an hour before I had to return it because the controls were broken. Whenever you attack without holding a directional button the character automatically attacks downward even if you're in a combo. It has caused me to die more than once. In addition when aiming with the gun, again downward, the aiming sight will snap into random directions and stay snapped prevening you from actually hitting targets. I thought I could just avoid this by not using the gun, but there are timed platforming sections that require shooting triggers to create platforms and it was literally impossible as the gun would fire wildly and when you run out of ammo you have to start over. Very dissapoiting as the game seemed like it could be a nice experience, but I am completely stuck because of the controls. I should also add that I tried 2 controllers and the keyboard/mouse and the issue happened with all.
An old style, atmospheric side scrolling adventure game with a neat combo based combat system. It only lacks a bit more depth and some variation. Gameplay: Broken up between simple platforming and combat. Run into an enemy and combat begins. All combat is 1v1 and is essentially a timing based puzzle. Each enemy will attack/block in certain patterns and your job is to initiate combos when they leave themselves open. It works well, but it's too repetative. Each enemy functions basically the same. You also can't sneak past, sneak attack or do anything outside of combat. Once you figure out an enemie's pattern it becomes simple to dispatch them, but you're forced to keep fighting. The platforming is very simple. Move to the right (usually), cllimb up/down a platform, move, fight, repeat. You can jump, but it's not really used for anything special. Each dungeon is basically just a circle. You go down, left/right/ then back up. Visuals: The pixel graphics are beautiful and the setting is well rendered. The city of Ravenrock is not a place I'd like to live, but it was nice to visit. The dungeons each look unique, but the rooms are all the same inside the dungeons. Presentation: The UI is minimal which works for the style and setting. There no audio settings and you can't change any settings when you're in the game. You have to quit and go back to the main menu. Load times are non existent so it's not a huge issue, but it's a bit strange. Narrative: Decent, but predictable and stale. You can figure it out from the very beginning. There is this idea that the protagonist is immortal, but it's never really utilized in the game save for a few narrative points. It's never used in the gameplay, really.
Too simple and not enough player control. I like the visuals, but the entire game is a frustrating loop. It's not an RTS, at least not a traditional type. You can only have 15 units total and they will run around automatically killing, destroying enemy lairs and looting. Sounds good on paper, but in practice they run away from your base and leave it defenseless and kite enemies through your base so it still takes damage. The player controls what units they craft, spells cast and, optionally, one unit at a time. The issue is the spells have a painfully long CD and manual control is full manual. You have to use the WASD keys to move the unit which means you can't pay attention to the rest of the map. The spells can be upgraded using gold to increase effect and reduce CD, but that ends up actually being the main gameplay loop. Start a run, lose, upgrade something (it can take 2-3 runs to upgrade a single spell), start again, make a bit more money, die, repeat. I think the limit of 15 units is the biggest issue. I found myself having to destroy my own units just to create new ones to defend my base.
A great looking game with terrific combat mechanics, but neither are used to full effect with such a limited number of mission types and sadly uninspired maps. Gameplay: A turn based strategy roguelite. The mechanics are great. Pick your squad of 4 and go through 15 missions until the final 'defense' mission. Each unit has a starting loadout that can be changed and a unique upgrade path. Walls can be destroyed to open new paths and line of sight. Most weapons generate heat and if you accumulate too much heat you take damage. You can also overheat enemies, but I found this is very difficult to do and the damge isn't worth it. Contrary there are enemies specificially designed to overheat you. Pro tip, kill Heaters first. The biggest issue with the gameplay is there are only 5 mission types and 3 of them require you to just kill all the enemies regardless of the goal. Add that to the shear number of enemies and every battle ends up a battle of attrition. Higher difficulties function the same, but there are more enemies, they have more armor and battles just take longer. There isn't too much strategy, either, since enemies can teleport in anywhere, you always want to keep your squad grouped up and focus fire. There are no missions that require any variety, regardless of the goals. Visuals: Very unique, clean and appealing. Only issue I have is a lack of variety. Every map looks idenctical to the last. Narrative: Not really applicable. You unlock some emails after every succesful run, but you unlock them one at a time. Very slow for half a page of text. Presentation: The inventory and menus are very easy to navigate and you never get enough gear to be overwhelming. Once you understand the mechanics, it becomes easy to pick out which gear you want and what is actually an upgrade. Excellent presentation.
The platforming and action is decent and the amount of customization is good, but the game lacks polish and depth. Once I finished the main story, I tried a challenge mode (just the same game but with restrictions) and new game plus (same game, but harder), but it couldn't keep my interest. Visuals: The retro style looks ok. The particle effects are never too overwhelming which helps when in combat. There are some interesting pixel animated cutscenes, but they are only used in the opening and the ending which is a shame. Gameplay: Equip gear, kill enemies, jump on platforms. The gear is your standard mix of bad, good and great. You find what works and you want to stick with it, but if you us an item enough you master it, earning MP that allows you to use better starting gear on your next run. While this provides a stronger start and an incentive to use different gear it also forces you to not use what you like and can make runs harder. There's also character upgrades but they are gained PAINfully slow. After clearing the story mode I still didn't have even half of the upgrades unlocked. Presentation: This is my biggest gripe. There are too many aspects of the game that should have been revisited. The sound mixing is off. Some sounds are very loud while others are too low. Skipping dialogue causes the BGM to 'skip' and since there's no voice overs and most people read faster than the auto scroll this became a common annoyance. There's no way to sort the player or the vault inventory. Narrative: While most roguelites have simple stories, which works for the game type, MU goes for something with more depth, but fails to deliver. Something, something, humans are the real monsters, etc. Characters aren't given time grow or naturally illustrate their personalities. Not normally an issue for a roguelite, but if you're going to call it a narrative driven roguelite you should try a bit harder.
Overall: Decent action metroidvania. The map is a bit small, combat is pretty simple and the story is pretty uninteresting. Mostly fails to live up to potential. I would be very interested in a bigger sequel, though. Game play: It’s a metroidvania, but the map is simply too small. There’s technically two, but they’re both the ‘same’ map, just in different time periods. This amounts to both maps being similar in structure with some minor changes in most cases and just one major change (a fortress vs a castle) based on the time period. It’s also very horizontal. As a result the exploration is very linear. It wasn’t hard to find where I needed to go next without needing to explore. The combat has this really neat idea where you can equip two orbs, that could each do something different, but since they have different ranges and speeds I always found it better to equip the same in both slots. The game does let you have up to 3 load outs that can be swapped instantly so it does allow some customization. Visuals: The pixel graphics are beautiful and the protagonist’s animations are particularly well done. Even when combat begins the particle effects don’t obstruct your view while attacks still look distinct. Evading and inflicting damage relies more on skill than trying to parse out what can and can’t be seen. The backgrounds aren’t obtrusive and I never didn’t know where I can’t jump or move to. Very importation for platformers. Presention: Small options like weapon load outs and in game logs/achievement viewing is availble and appreciated. A tutorial is provided as part of the narrative and it's quick, unobtrusive and can be skipped. It's nice when devs understand the simple pleasures. It would have been nice if harder difficulties were available from the start. It was a pretty easy game, overall. Story: More narrative focused than most metroidvanias. The story is pretty good, but, predictable and mostly forgettable.
