El Pase, Elsewhere is a third-person shooter about a monster hunter trying to stop the end of the world. It also discusses the topic of healing from abusive relationships. I like the music, the visual style, the feel of the weapons, especially the area-of-effect stakes. The settings allow to have infinite stakes and fight mostly in melee, which I found satisfying enough. The controls are comfortable and rebindable and 5-button mice are supported. The level design is chaotic and irrational and the story backs it up well. The objectives consist mostly of saving all hostages or finding keys and crossing the floor. The aesthetics start with the typical hotel and go places, more unusual with each floor. Due to the ceiling missing for most of the floors, the hostages covered in the rays of light are clearly visible, though finding the path to them is another issue - the levels are labyrinthine. When the last hostage on the floor has been saved, the lighting changes to guide back to the lift, while the foes attack from all sides. It is quite exciting. The models are in the style of PS1 games, though the performance varies and the game does not support the exclusive full-screen mode. However, it is possible to decrease the render scaling. The music is outstanding and pleasant to listen to even outside of the game. I like that the protagonist narrates the things to pay attention to, which I as the player might not notice, whether it is the story relevance or picking up a new gun. Between the levels, there is more lore in regard to the foes and the background story for the protagonist and the antagonist. The voice acting is generally good and the protagonist’s comments are on point. Seeing a guy who both can shoot and has some self-awareness and self-reflection is incredibly refreshing. And there is something appealing in the attitude, in knowing that this is a one-way journey to achieve something good, one last time.
Since it was not explicitly stated on the store page, Jusant seems to require a specific Windows version, rather than any Windows 10. Upon trying to start the game, I have encountered the "Not all GPU features required by this game are supported by your GPU (or GPU driver)" error message and I am quite certain that the GeForce RTX 2070 (6GB VRAM) satisfies the recommended, not to mention the minimum, system requirements.
Sorry We're Closed is a brilliant game - excellent writing, level design, gameplay, visual style and graphics, and music. The system requirements are most reasonable, the controls are rebindable, and there are some accessibility options (including infinite healing and aim-assist). There are several endings and I have managed to reach 2 of them (some are mutually exclusive, as I understand). There are also some side quests and collectibles, tied closely to the main story. 1 playthrough is around 10 hours. The genre is survival horror in an uncompromisingly queen British setting created by a small development team (2 people), while the story itself is about love (and not bringing a chainsaw to a shotgun fight). The game is heartwarming, engaging, and focused, and also DRM-, DLC-, and MTX-free. This is exactly the kind of art I want to see and support more. The only thing I could complain about are very few save slots (3), but Windows Explorer resolves it.
Caravan Sandwitch is an adventure game in a futuristic dystopian setting. The protagonist, Sauge, arrives at an old and abandoned colony with very few former colonists and the indigenous people in search of her sister, Garance. The story subtly raises the questions of community, unrestrained capitalism, shareholder supremacy, ecology, and the impact of colonialism. The LGBTQ+ characters are present, while the setting is homophobia- and transphobia-free. The gameplay consists of driving and interacting with the environment with the van’s tools (the story progresses as the new devices are acquired) and exploring the ruins on foot with very light platforming to gather the components for the upgrades or activate the machinery. There are no complex puzzles or timed action sequences, no combat and no falling damage. There are a few well-paced side quests with different objectives and some choices in dialogues. There are 2 endings. The map is of reasonable size - it is easy to navigate and fun to explore, while the markers show where the NPCs and the points of interest are. The traversal both via the car and on foot is very comfortable. The controls are comfortable and rebindable and most of the settings can be adjusted, though the graphics are configured only with the presets. Additionally, there are only 3 save slots and the game uses auto-saving, so Windows Explorer once again is the best option for the save file management. The visual design is beautiful and minimalistic - the character and environment designs are expressive, while also making it easy to see where to go. The soundtrack is pleasant to listen to. Overall, it was a positive experience (although, reminding of the ongoing climate crisis), and I wholeheartedly recommend the game.
1000xResist (“One Thousand Times Resist”) is a mix of a walking simulator and a kinetic visual novel. There are one puzzle (unless one counts the “interact with everything” objective as a puzzle), one timed action sequence, and one choice that matters, with the previous 10 hours being the context to make it. The story takes place in a post-apocalyptic sci-fi setting, where humanity died from the extraterrestrial invasion and a plague, with only one human and her clones remaining. The human, Iris, the All-Mother, is worshipped by her clones as a goddess. The protagonist, the Watcher, is a clone whose duty is to observe the All-Mother’s memories. The story is focused on the topics of revolution (the Hong Kong Umbrella Revolution, in particular) and generational trauma. The game is as artistic as it can get. The visual and the sound design are reasonably simple and expressive. All dialogues are voiced and there are very few facial animations. In terms of gameplay, the only possible challenge is to navigate the labyrinthine locations to interact with the next objective, but the exploration never feels rewarding. Only the main hub has a map, which becomes unavailable at some point. Occasionally, the story presentation becomes less straightforward and more abstract and invocative, but just walking forward solves it. The choices in the dialogues throughout the game affect nothing and it was frustrating to see the protagonist do or say unwise things automatically. For the technical part, the controls are not rebindable, though they are not uncomfortable. The visual settings are lacking, so I was stuck with the post-effects and the game was trying to heat up my GPU a few times. There are 10 save slots, with one of them being the auto-save, and it is possible to replay the unlocked chapters. Overall, I think that games like 1000xResist should be celebrated, but the technical and gameplay flaws make it less appealing, thus, I would recommend it with at least 50% discount.
Sephonie is a platformer with abstract puzzles about a group of researchers marooned on a mysterious island. The keyboard and mouse controls are rebindable and there are a lot of accessibility and difficulty options for different parts of gameplay. The reason for the 2-star rating is that during one of the early scenes, the narrator was describing in detail the smell and the taste of a burnt and gutted (by one of the main characters) corpse and what the smell and the taste reminded the characters about. None of them gave a second thought to killing a living being for lols nor did the narrator pointed it out. The scene was long and descriptive enough for me to request a refund. While the representation of LGBTQ+ and POC is welcome in general, this game managed to make all of them repulsive. This is not what we are.
Ghost Song is a Metroidvania with Souls-like elements. The story follows a newly-awakened Deadsuit who took upon herself to assist the surviving crew of a crashed spaceship. There are no story-related choices (the main character auto-replies in dialogues), though some of the mandatory objectives can be achieved in different order. The story and the dialogues are written well, and the characters are likeable, so the protagonist’s lines are fitting and going along with the objectives comes easy. The combat is functional - the main default weapon is a gun with rather limited range, while the damage decreases the farther the target is. There are other ranged weapons with different attack types and abilities, as well as melee weapons. It should be noted that there is contact damage and it hits as hard as a normal attack from the respective foe, which usually makes ranged combat preferable. The main character has few attributes which can be upgraded at the infrequent fast travel points, while the save points are much more plentiful. Additionally, there are modules, which provide quality changes to the protagonist’s abilities, such as healing while attacking in melee, double jumping, or being able to see foes’ health bars. The bosses are diverse, challenging, and have some background story. The main aspect of a Metroidvania is exploration, and the world is interesting and engaging to explore. There are a lot of optional paths and secrets, while the traversal is comfortable. There are very fast travel points, but the map is not too large. Additionally, the locations change slightly as the story progresses, most notably, during the return-to-camp sequences, while new abilities allow to access previously unreachable areas. The visual design is stunningly beautiful and easy to read at the same time. The controls are reasonably comfortable and rebindable (mice are supported). No significant bugs have been encountered. The only flaw is auto-saving in the same slot.
Flynn: Son of Crimson is a platformer with some Metroidvania elements, such as different weapons, a few combat skills, and 2 additional traversal abilities. The story of an orphan saving the world is not exactly original and this particular implementation is bland, but not horrible. The controls are rebindable and the level design is present. The graphics and visual design are nice and there is no contact damage, which, while good in general, should not be the only good things to say about a game. The Scourge system, where a previously-cleared location transformed and you had to clear a few rooms of it in order to progress, was fine. Not sure if the chosen levels were random, but it did look like a lot of effort to implement. There were a few instances when I was hit (-1 HP) and pushed into a pit (-1 more HP), which was rather irritating.
Sheepo is a challenging platformer-Metroidvania. The titular humanoid sheep is an explorer sent to gather eggs of the local species for an intergalactic species database. How physical objects are digitalised or preserved is not explained, while the eggs collected allow the protagonist to shape-shift into the respective species, but only when there is one nearby, which does not improve the consistency of the story. The controls are comfortable and rebindable, though the on-screen prompts still show the default configuration and wall-jumping is a bit odd. There is no direct combat outside of boss battles, only the environmental hazards, such as spikes and chainsaws. The boss battles are mostly focused on avoiding damage (bullet-hell-like) long enough for the bosses to die or be knocked out. The difficulty cannot be adjusted mid-game, and discovering that you woefully underprepared at the fifth boss is rather unpleasant. Fortunately, the save file can be easily edited with a text editor. There are several NPCs to talk to and some secrets to discover. The map is helpful overall - there are not many types of collectibles, only the health upgrades and the feathers. The latter are required to unlock the final areas and the ending. An optional NPC in the late-game gives a map showing the approximate location of the uncollected feathers. Another NPC can point in the general direction of the next egg to collect. Unfortunately, if the protagonist dies after collecting a feather and before reaching a save point, the feather will need to be collected again. Considering that they are usually located in hard-to-reach places, it is rather unpleasant. The visual design is expressive and readable. The soundtrack is nice and fitting. Overall, because I played Islets, the developer’s newer game, before Sheepo, the experience felt underwhelming. Islets is simply better in every aspect, but Sheepo can be enjoyable as well.
I would like to start with that I liked Spiders' previous games, including the one about fairies with turn-based combat. They were reasonably well-written, engaging, comfortable to play, and, most importantly, they ran without stuttering or frying the hardware. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said about Steelrising - it forces to download 40GB of effectively unusable textures, while also trying to overheat the CPU. The range of options leaves a lot to be desired as well - many effects cannot be disabled. There are some accessibility options, such as rebindable controls, the subtitle size, and the Assist Mode, but the saving is unreliable - upon loading a lot progress can be lost. The voice acting is a ridiculous of English with French phrases sprinkled here and there, because this is how people speak in France. Ironically, the actual French VA is missing. Overall, it felt like the game is a debut of a 16 year-old solo texture artist who cannot do anything else.
