Although I hate Tim Schafer, most games from Double Fine are quite fun and so is this. They only seem to be able to make very childish games but since it's what the games are built on anyway, it does fit most of the time. It's basically Final Fantasy - American/Halloween Edition. The combat and finding everything is quite easy and it's overall quite relaxing. The story is cute, the graphics look like a PS2 game but it doesn't hurt the childish comic style. For someone without a cultural heritage that included those rather silly modern customs, the setting is strange and so is seeing children's pics of the devs in their halloween costumes in the end, but I guess it specifically appeals to the child in American adults. The game has three problems though: 1. The framerate is worse than in Shadow Warrior 2015 and many other later games, maybe it's locked to a certain rate. 2. The controls. Again although there is actually button mapping, there is no native support for my normal USB gamepad and I had to make a profile for QJoyPad again. The problem is, that not everything is turnbased and the timed combat actions use different buttons every time, so if there is a "press Q / Space / Alt, etc..." NOW, you'll have to think about where they are on the gamepad and time's over, so I had to remap the keyboard bindings to 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and set those to the same numbers as are written in the buttons on my gamepad. This way it was properly playable, but it can't be played completely via gamepad, since you still have to choose the costumes via mouse. It does seem to specifically support M$ gamepads and this habit is unacceptable. It's like building non-apple MP3 players that are only working with Apple earplugs... My PC is no XBox, it doesn't even run on Windows most of the time. 3. It's quite repetitive, but that's the case in many of those Final Fantasy like games and kind of a standard.
Since I've played through it two times in a row and have collected all the info and skills as well as passed all the tests, I finally consider this game as finished. It actually was a lot like Bastion, even the whole calamity topic but with another more technocratic and actually romantic angle. First the negative things about it: - Completely linear, all the variety is in the fighting/skill system. - Although you can unlock many tracks from the soundtrack in-game and listen to it in the "sand box", you still have to buy it in order to hear it outside of the game That's about it, now to the positive aspects of the game: - The brilliant fighting/skill system: It's actually so good that it would deserve a multiplayer mode. It's a very good mix of real-time and turn based and once you get the hang of it, you'll just have to try all the different skill combinations and create different tactics - Graphics: 2D in high resolution with smooth animations and nice visual effects are exactly my cup of tea, I'd always prefer this to 3D objects when it comes to the isometric perspective. - Narrative: Having a voice talking to you in a calm way all the time was already used in Bastion but it's still working well for maintaining the immersion. - Soundtrack: Brillian. Bastion's soundtrack was awesome already but this one seems to have been made with equal effort and a great result. - Theme: The distant future of city life complete with the whole technocracy and trends resulting in ever changing environment with too few constants Conclusion: Highly recommended for everyone that likes tactical combat, isometric 2D graphics, a nice narrative, sci-fi, melancholy and some romance. I won't say much about the end in order to not spoil it, but it's something most devs and your average hero wouldn't do.
Since my gamepad wasn't properly recognized as a joystick (buttons worked, but neither the sticks nor the d-pad worked), I've disabled joystick support in the config file and used QJoyPad instead and mapped the dpad and buttons how I wanted to have them. I've tried various image filters as well via config-file, just choose something with 2x and you're good. Now to the game itself: I've finished all cups including the bonus cups on easy as first, tried all characters and the duck shooting and consider it done since I've got no desire to play it anymore. The graphics, soundtrack and effects can neither compete at all with the two years older Super Mario Kart (1992) nor with the excellent PC version of Street Racer (1994) which was released only a month after Wacky Weels. The framerate is fixed to a very low value which makes playing a bit tiring, the resolution is really low and the music is the usual apogee midi stuff. The characters are cute, the track design is solid, the weapon system is good and the controls are responsive. As weapons you get to throw hedgehogs at your opponents which you have to roadkill first while they are doing weird stuff on the road (including sitting on a toilet). The can be used like non bouncing green turtle shells. Every hedgehog you didn't use gets transferred to the next race, so your stack can grow quite a bit. In addition to those, there is also a fireblast, an oil slick, a bomb (which is more like a mine), a weird stationary couple of bouncing red balls and some ice cubes. There is a brake and a handbrake although you really have to be give the handbrake only a slight tap to not completely turn around, it is very useful though once you get the hang of it, It was fun for a while and is worth a dollar (not the $2.99 I've paid though) imho and has a certain historical value. Just when I thought, there should be a modern sequel, I just got to know, that there actually is although I wonder why they use flat "3D" in 2015.
I've finished adventure mode with most stars and all chests and solved most of the bonus levels. Since the rest is only frustrating and no fun anymore I consider it finished. The art is minimalistic as can be expected from a Java game, the music is relaxing and it should be, because the game can be really frustrating when you have planned out your solution, reached a certain point after some difficult moves but a tiny mistake in timing let's you play the whole level again... and again... I've enjoyed the game anyway and would recommend it to everyone that likes puzzle games and doesn't mind all the areas where you need perfect timing and perfect jumps. I will come back to the second part of the series (Tetrobot & Co) at some point for sure.
It fixed all the issues I had with the (old version of) Trine 1. There is a bit enemy variety now (although mostly goblins) and at least after the base game, you see new kinds of environments like a desert, the inside of a giant sandworm, a crypt, a town, etc... Since I grew up with "The Lost Vikings" on SNES by Silicon Synapse (later known as "Blizzard"), I adore the concept and which more games like this were made but Trine 1+2 are more than worthy to the throne and since Blizzard doesn't give a damn about it's old gems, we can't expect a new "Lost Vikings" anytime soon. The graphics are absolutely stunning and this is the case technically on the one hand but especcially when it comes to actual design. Everything seems very alive and real in its own universe. I'm happy to have bought a proper Nvidia card a while ago because this game and Shadow Warrior 2013 seem to be made for high quality gaming on Linux. In addition to way more variety, the expansion introduced some technical glitches as well (mostly sound) which weren't gamebreaking though. The puzzles in the additional worlds need proper use of the higher abilities of the characters and add a bit of difficulty. I still haven't understood how to break fragile stone walls under water, but that's ok, I've found a lot of secrets myself although there is really much to find and I will play it again some day in order to enjoy it again and find more stuff. Conclusion: One of the best games I played in the last years and although it is linear, the replay value is very high.
It's actually a movie and lacks the charm of point'n'click adventures although some areas do look nice although quite dead. Rails... moving around... combat (dafuq?)...stealth... rails... endless cutscenes... combat....no immersion... untouching artificially sad scenes... open end.... "buy the next part to see the end, maybe"... Controlling it with mouse and keyboard was so terrible (btw: Inverted X axis? Seriously?), that I switched to a gamepad and it was indeed designed as a console game which becomes obvious from the very beginning. The "puzzles" are disiculously easy, you only have 2-3 items in your inventory most of the time and if you missed the musical notes played in one moment in the game, you can't solve a puzzle and have no chance to hear the notes again. The German voice-over was one of the most terrible I've ever encountered. You are reminded all of the time, that nobody knew what they were actually talking about and which expression to use when reading the script. The Characters are not very well written overall but the main character Zoe is the worst. She is a pampered rich girl that aborted her studies, does not work, abandoned her boyfriend without any real reason (and he is not even mad) and complains about her not knowing what to do with her time while watching TV most of the days, partying and being extremely unreliable which for some reason nobody really minds apart from her female martial arts trainer that in the end only complains a bit about it. If it would have been a guy, the father would surely have minded that "his little prince" is a lazy bum and thrown him out of the apartment. It was a waste of time and I hope that Dreamfall: Chapters is way better then this.
Just like other east European games, this Slovakian one has its own charm and technical problems. Let's get to the negative points first: Lots of bugs from which most aren't gamebreaking though: Unusual skill system that would desperately need some explanation. The moment I really understood how it's working, the game went from hard to extremely easy for me. There are a lot of items to master but not many areas with respawning enemies, so you'll miss out on some stuff in a playthrough in any case, especcially if you do not understand how to level up certain skills from the start. The effect of the "dexterity" attribute wasn't obvious for me but it's crucial for proper fighting. Too short for your decisions to really have an impact on the actual game. In order to see enough of the area to play properly, you have to zoom out every time you change areas but since you can do this with the mouse wheel, it isn't so bad. The last bass fights are a bit boring. Now to the good stuff: The story of an atheist inquisition is a nice idea and since a god actually did exist in this world at one point but is dead gives the story some unique directions. It's not a hack'n'slash ARPG like I thought at first but rather something like a far less sophisticated Inquisitor with interesting mechanics. The main character has a personality but isn't good or evil but rather something bitchy in between with a dark childhood and you decide in which direction she is heading. It isn't as annoyingly colourful as today's RPGs and the mix of 2D backgrounds and 3D characters/monsters is working better than I expected. It does blend together quite well. I like the ending although it could have been longer and would need a proper outro. Conclusion: If you like somewhat dusty looking but special western RPGs that are different from all the others, you should definitely give this one a go but I'd recommend to ask people that already finished it about the skill system to save you some late surprises.
Since I've played through it two times in a row and have collected all the info and skills as well as passed all the tests, I finally consider this game as finished. It actually was a lot like Bastion, even the whole calamity topic but with another more technocratic and actually romantic angle. First the negative things about it: - Completely linear, all the variety is in the fighting/skill system. - Although you can unlock many tracks from the soundtrack in-game and listen to it in the "sand box", you still have to buy it in order to hear it outside of the game That's about it, now to the positive aspects of the game: - The brilliant fighting/skill system: It's actually so good that it would deserve a multiplayer mode. It's a very good mix of real-time and turn based and once you get the hang of it, you'll just have to try all the different skill combinations and create different tactics - Graphics: 2D in high resolution with smooth animations and nice visual effects are exactly my cup of tea, I'd always prefer this to 3D objects when it comes to the isometric perspective. - Narrative: Having a voice talking to you in a calm way all the time was already used in Bastion but it's still working well for maintaining the immersion. - Soundtrack: Brillian. Bastion's soundtrack was awesome already but this was seems to have been made with equal effort and a great result. - Theme: The distant future of city life complete with the whole technocracy and trends resulting in ever changing environment with too few constants Conclusion: Highly recommended for everyone that likes tactical combat, isometric 2D graphics, a nice narrative, sci-fi, melancholy and some romance. I won't say much about the end in order to not spoil it, but it's something most devs and your average hero wouldn't do.
