To preface, I refunded this game due to the bugs. The game in its current state is functionally broken. There are several ways to hard lock the game during the tutorial and countless ways to soft lock the game overall. I can’t even really say what the game has to offer in terms of the NSFW content because either the patch isn’t implemented properly or the game is so broken that nothing happens. I want to list some issues so if other players attempt to play the game maybe they can avoid the pitfalls: -during the tutorial DO NOT close the hire troops menu without hiring troops, it will hard lock -don’t click through the forced tutorial too fast or else it hard locks -do not intentionally drop your population to 0, it will loop back to max population and, you guessed it, hard lock I see a lot of these problems also mentioned on the steam reviews, but since the unrated patched that supposedly fixed a lot of these issues was hosted here I decided to give it a shot, which leads me to the patch. I’m unsure if that patch is either not implemented correctly or if there’s some other issue, but the patch functionally does nothing at the time of writing. There is a patch exe added to the game folder, but for me it was entirely broken and running it did nothing. That could be a system setting issue on my end, but this is the first game I’ve run into this issue with. Now to actual gameplay: You manage a village that is attacked by barbarians in regular intervals. You have a population that gives birth to a certain amount of babies each year that you turn into soldiers. You raise troops, fight off barbarians, and do “quests” that amount to nothing more than “click win if you have enough troops, click back if you don’t.” If you fail to repel an invasion you lose some of your population and can lose one of the main characters for a set amount of time before you can rescue them. Supposedly you can get quests specifically for the heroines but they never appeared for me in 2+ hours of gameplay. Additionally you can apparently run a brothel. I say apparently because the tutorial mentions it but then it never appears. That’s pretty much it. Repel invasion, do “quests”, raise troops, rinse and repeat until the game either breaks or you meet the conditions to marry one or both of the heroines, which in my case, unceremoniously drops you back to the main menu. I’ll update this review if they ever fix the issues, but as of right now this is barely a game. I know these NSFW games, especially the non-Kagura published ones, can kinda be a roll of the dice in terms of quality but this one is shockingly bad.
This game caught my attention because I've always loved speedrunning, despite not being very good at it, so naturally a game marketed to speedrunning would catch my attention. The gameplay is very simplistic. You are given whatever powers you need to complete the level, just get to the exit as quick as possible. This is literally it. The fun comes from getting better times on each level, which lead to some really interesting moments where you kick yourself for jumping when you probably couldv'e just run across a gap. The abilites you get for each level range from reversing gravity, to making platforms, to setting a spot where you can teleport back to, which make levels very puzzle-y and never really feel boring. There's also collectables which the game lets you collect then restart the level while recording that you've collected it, which is a god send since otherwise the locations of these objects pretty much promise that you'll time out of the level since they are either hidden very well or are difficult to get to. The main thing that makes me decrease this review by a star is that not every level is about maximizing your action economy or jumping at the best times or any of the other traditional glitchless speedrun techniques, it's about finding what "breaks" the level. This could me finding a different path through the level, using your powers in an interesting way, or simply absuing the tools given to you. For some reason this did not appeal to me as it means that some levels you have to run pretty much ad infinitum to just find the thing that breaks the level. In one such case early on it was a collapsable floor piece you could break that cuts off about 6 seconds of your time. This removed the feeling of speedrunning and starts to feel more like a puzzle game than a platformer. Realistically I give this game a 4.5 but since there isn't a half star function I have to put it at a 4/5. Overall I recommend this game fairly highly.
When I booted up the game I thought I had made a bit of a bad purchase. The start of the game gave me the impression that the entire game would be staring at computer screens and reading, however I couldn't have been more wrong. Once I got out of the tutorial and into the game proper I was shocked. The amount of variety this game has is staggering. The different models of ship you get actually matter as their layouts are different, which seems like a small detail but makes the game feel very realistic, despite the intentionally low-res graphics. The main gameplay loop can be multiple different styles. I, being terrified of damaging my shiny new piece of space junk, decided to strike it rich being a merchant, however you can be a pirate, bounty hunter, or space taxi, all of which involve different strategies. The in-game economy seems a bit lackluster at first but it's actually really interesting. As you play you get a feel for what each system is good at producing and what they want. You can figure out trading by brute force, I.E. buying a bunch of different stuff and trying to see what it sells for in different system, or you can try to figure it out through in-game news or other info. HOWEVER, AND THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT!!!!!!! Travel in the early game takes a long time. A very long time. This might sound like a downside but this means this game is great as a relaxant. I can come home from work, throw this on in the background, put on a youtube video and just relax while traveling, which is what I think this game's best strength is. I cannot recommend this game highly enough for anyone looking for an experience they can just put on and enjoy while relaxing. Yes you can play the game as a high octane space simulator if you want but the combat is very submarine feeling, which I liked but some will probably hate. TL;DR Good game if you wanna relax as a merchant, good game if you wanna play as a pirate or bounty hunter. Fun game with variable styles
When I first saw this game I expected it to be your standard modern adventure game, but I was happily surprised when I started playing. First of all, I'm usually detered from these sorts of games by the large amount of reading involved, however most encounters in this game are fully voice acted, which was a massive shock. The main gameplay loop is simply walking around the country and finding new and interesting tales, which range from very hopeful and silly to amazingly depressing. With these stories you can talk to major characters who set up camp on the country map. These characters are also voiced and have really interesting dialogue. If I had to fault the game for anything I guess I would say that it's very niche in its appeal. I love this game because it's very much a game of wandering, meeting new people, experiencing now town, and telling stories that eventually evolve as more people hear and retell them. I highly recommend this game because it is truly something unique. Interestingly enough, some of the stories you hear are actually based on their location, such as finding the Jersey Devil in New Jersey, which I found really cool. This game is a love letter to American folk culture, which is something not really celebrated. If you're up for an adventure that makes you feel some genuine emotion, then I can't recommend Where The Water Tastes Like Wine more highly.
At first glance many people will probably compare this to Enter the Gungeon, but do not write it off as a clone. The unique selling point to Hellmut is the ability to switch between characters mid-fight, which acts almost like a lives system where you might die with one character but then you switch to the next one and continue on. The thing that stood out to me is how different the characters actually are from eachother, and I don't mean in simple appearance or weapons. Once one of my characters died I was swapped to the default character who handles much more quickly than the one I was previously playing but is also tossed around more by recoil. The game does play very similar to Gungeon but that isn't a bad thing as it makes the barrier to entry basically nonexistent. As far as real time roguelikes go Hellmut handles very well and it doesn't feel like deaths are cheap, however the game is hard and you will die very quickly if you aren't paying attention. Overall, I highly recommend this game for anyone looking for a frantic, fast paced roguelike with a sense of humor and a lot of character.
This an extremely well crafted game, especially for something in development. The game plays almost like Darkest Dungeon mixed with a deck builder, which creates a really interesting situation where you might turn down a better weapon just because it doesn't give the cards you want. If I had to say anything bad I'd have to say that resources are very scarce, although that might be the point. When you board a derelict vessel you have a set amount of energy that is used to move and is used in combat, meaning that you have to plan carefully because once you're out of energy you're dead. This energy system creates a great incentive to really delve as deep as possible into a ship just to make the adventure profitable, however it also makes the delve very tense. The game being in development has some minor issues, such as some of the cards staying zoomed in after you hover over it, obscuring the cards next to it. Other than this the only other issue I encountered was the lack of a tutorial, but considering the game is very early in development this is pretty forgivable. TL;DR - If you are looking for a truly tense roguelike experience then this is pretty much perfect. There will be some growing pains since it is in development but the game is already very polished and has a great atmopshere. I can't wait to see what gets added to this game over time!
This game is a bit of an oddity. From the get go it seems like a by the books grid-based tactics game, but it quickly threw me for a lot of twists and turns. The first thing that stood out to me is the use of the harmony and dissonance mechanic, which acts as a sort of "you're forced to double down on a strategy" gimmick. Basically, Harmony is a normal attack and dissonance is a sort of buffed attack that might have a chance to explode and hurt your team. I say might have a chance because I'm not entirely sure. This is where most of the improvement can be made, the tutorial. On first launch the game throws you into a tutorial of sorts that seems to not explain things in great detail. You start with two characters and it quickly dives into harmony squares, dissonance squares, and tons of bond types, yet it doesn't go into great detail on any of these. Luckily the mechanics of the game are very solid and you can figure out what each mechanic does pretty quickly if you pay attention. I look forward to seeing how this game will turn out and I feel there is a very solid base to work on here.
